Intergalactic War
by Heretic.Knight.515
Summary: The Reapers have allied with the Flood, and the remnants of the old Covenant. The Systems Alliance and Council needs ships and soldiers, so they look to the UNSC and the New Republic. Can they survive the coming war? Can anyone?
1. Chapter 1

AN: After finishing the campaigns of Mass Effect 1 & 2 for the 353th time, and after an epic win in Rumble Pit on Halo 3, I got to thinking. That may sound like an innocent enough sentence, but that's 'cuz you don't know me. I literally _cannot stop thinking_. No choice. Anyway, an idea was hatched. Why not do a massive, over-reaching crossover with Mass Effect, Halo, and Star Wars? (I know Star Wars came out of nowhere, but what the hell) Well, there are plenty of reasons not to, but by the time I figured them out I was already like four pages in, so yeah. I stayed up till 5:00 AM working out little plot points and details, because I'm an idiot. So, yeah. If you like it, Read and REVIEW! That is what keeps a writer going, people! So, yeah. Enjoy! I'm gonna get some friggin sleep.

Chapter 1

High Charity was massive. A space station, carved from an asteroid, larger than a dozen fleets. It was an incredible achievement, one that had taken decades of dedicated labor. It was one of the few things that had impressed the Gravemind in its million-year reign.

_And now it is mine_, it thought with some emotion akin to jealous pride. And it was. Tens of thousands of Flood combat forms patrolled it, and millions of the Gravemind's tendrils had spread through it, tapping every system, controlling everything that mattered. Even now, green-brown Flood flesh was growing on the walls, fed by the corpses of those who had failed to hold High Charity against the Flood.

The moon-sized space station was traveling through slipspace. It had been for weeks. Even with the advanced technology of the former Covenant, slipping to the borders of the galaxy was no mean feat. The Gravemind was heading to a secret destination. If anything were to know of its purpose and importance, all could be lost.

The Gravemind guarded this secret jealously. It was the secret to its long life, and something even more important.

The Gravemind was salvation. It was the end of pain, fear, death. When an individual was infected, _saved_, it's combined knowledge and experience was integrated into the Gravemind. This was more significant than small-minded insects like the humans or Covenant could understand. The measure of an individual is its mind. When an individual dies, that person disappears. It is gone, for all time. The voracious speed of the Flood was not mere hunger-it was the urgency of one could stave death away from a loved one, if it could only arrive in time.

Countless civilizations. That was the measure of the Flood's altruism. More souls than could be imagined had been saved. They slumbered in the Gravemind's subconscious, granting him wisdom and intelligence in exchange for eternal life.

The Gravemind had been destroyed several times in its life. It always rose again, not even remotely weakened, not even slightly less clever. Yet no one wondered why.

Beyond the rim of the galaxy was a space station, about half the size of High Charity. It was several times older than the Forerunners. Every room, closet, nook, and cranny was filled with Flood brain matter.

_Here lies paradise_, the Gravemind thought as the station got within range. This was the physical manifestation of eternity. It was also the secret to the Gravemind's indestructible nature. Although the basic mechanism of the Gravemind had been destroyed dozens of times, no one would ever reach the head of the snake.

That was only partially due to its secrecy and isolation. The third factor was the armada that now guarded it. If the Gravemind had had the capability to feel fear, it would be feeling it as it contemplated its new allies.

Almost five hundred massive ships surrounded the core of the Gravemind's existence. They looked somewhat like the hard-shelled sea life that was similar on almost every habitable world. They were red-brown, like old blood.

Reapers.

The Gravemind had never considered itself evil. It understood why the peoples it conquered did, but it knew more than they did, and knew that their fear was more of the unknown that of the Flood.

The Reapers were evil. They were malevolent. Every fifty thousand years, the sentient warships ambushed the citizens of their galaxy. They destroyed them, utterly and completely. They claimed mystical and godlike reasons for their genocides, but the Gravemind wondered if they actually knew why they did it.

Technological progress never stops for organic civilizations. Could the Reapers be exterminating the competition before it became competition, while at the same time gathering scraps of original technology for itself?

The Reaper armada took massive amounts of resources. Could they be fueling up? Would it take fifty millennia to replenish their galaxy? Did they merely hibernate between the seasons, like a bear avoiding starvation by sleeping through winter?

From intercepted transmissions, the Gravemind learned that Systems Alliance, the neighboring galaxy's version of the UNSC, had been attacked by the Reapers several times. First, a single Reaper had nearly destroyed their fleet, a disturbing event that relayed the Reaper's raw strength. Then, colonists had been taken. From the Reapers themselves the Gravemind had learned that a Reaper larvae, little more than a fetus, had been destroyed. Were the Reapers wiping the galaxy periodically to reproduce?

The Gravemind wondered whether this was an alliance or extortion. The Reapers had him at their mercy. They had a gun to his head. One Reaper could easily destroy the station, and thus the Gravemind. The Gravemind controlled every single Flood form telepathically, and could do so with no regard to distance. One foot might as well be a hundred thousand light years.

The Reapers needed the Gravemind. They had a war in mind, a war that would stretch across three galaxies or more, and they needed the vicious, powerful infantry that only the Gravemind could provide.

The Gravemind was using the Reapers, too. He would spread and infect trillions of beings across the three galaxies. The Reaper's technology would make it easy to cross the unimaginably vastness of Dark Space, the trillions of light years _between_ galaxies. He would devour and save as many as he could.

So the Gravemind wasn't sure what to call his partnership with the Reapers. There were mutual benefits of cooperation, but the Gravemind had the short end of the stick: The Reapers could destroy him on a whim.

From deep within the armored core of High Charity, the timeless leader of the Flood sighed.

"Alpha Relay in position?" Commander Owen Shepard asked from the Normandy's galaxy map.

"Affirmative, Commander. So is Beta," Joker responded over the ship's intercom.

Shepard rubbed his temples. _Nothing's ever simple, is it_? It'd been two weeks since the two massive joint Citadel-Alliance prototype Mass Relays had been completed and set up. Alpha had taken a year of furious activity to finish, trial-and-error included. It was almost a perfect copy of the typical relay. The builders didn't fully understand the technology behind the relays, but knew enough to make a copy. Beta took eight months to build. Alpha Relay had been equipped with massive FTL engines and had been launched on a high energy burn across the galaxy. It burned through Dark Space and had actually made it to the neighboring galaxy. Beta had been finished almost immediately after that, and the two were connected. Hundreds of probes streamed into the other galaxy, which then jumped to FTL on random vectors. About half were destroyed, and Shepard had been asked to find out how.

This mission would be simple, but the politics and planning behind it wasn't. The Citadel Council had finally been convinced of the Reaper threat. Taxes were raised. Patrols increased. Shipyards were being built. Warship production was up four hundred percent! But things didn't get easier. There was still opposition. A lot, actually.

Even with all their progress, the odds of survival were slim. The Reapers were almost indestructible, and there were hundreds of them. A single Reaper had nearly destroyed the entire combined Citadel Defense and Alliance Fifth Fleets. The galactic war coming would be a losing battle, at best. The dozen species of the Citadel would be exterminated to the last man, woman, and child if they lost. An escape valve was needed. The war would take decades, maybe over a century, and would span the galaxy. They needed a place to hide a civilian population, evacuees if the war was won, refugees if the war was lost. The neighboring galaxy was the best option, hence the new Relays and the probes. Some of the probes weren't expected to last, but a disproportionate amount had been destroyed. Too many.

Shepard was sent to make sure the ultimate escape plan was had a safe destination.

The suicide mission against the Collectors had gone better than expected. Only two casualties: Jacob and Samara. Both died well. Jacob took a dozen Collectors with him. Samara was killed by the Human-Reaper while protecting Shepard and Tali. And when the choice came to destroy the massive base or give it to the Illusive Man, leader of the pro-human terrorist organization Cerberus, Shepard did what most of the others considered the wrong thing. He didn't destroy the base. But no one suspected he had a trick up his sleeve.

Shepard copied the IFF, the base's coordinates, and the proof about the Reapers. Then he sent them to both the Systems Alliance and the Citadel. Within a day, fleets arrived and blocked off Cerberus. In the Collector computers were terabytes of irrefutable data proving that Shepard had been right all along. The technology of the base was investigated and reverse-engineered peacefully by a joint effort. With so much Reaper tech, it was just a matter of manpower to create new, small-scale relays. Alpha and Beta were born, as well as four others, which were connecting the galaxy without the Reaper's relays.

When they attacked, the individual systems wouldn't be immediately cut off for easy pickings. The Collector tech was invaluable. Ships were being built with almost triple the shields of previous models. Thanix cannons, the devastating antiship weapon originally reverse-engineered from Sovereign, were standard issue for every new ship. Old ships were being quickly refitted with these upgrades, but they were already outnumbered by the new ships.

On Shepard's insistence, the quarians had been granted full access to the new tech. Civilian ships throughout the Migrant Fleet had always shown a preference for armament, but now the quarians had the single greatest navy in the galaxy. Diplomatic relations with them were much better, and some quarian ships even helped with patrolling Council space, almost unheard-of for the insular, distant aliens.

Everyone was busy these days, and most everyone got along. Shepard wondered if this was because they had finally found a common enemy.

The Normandy wasn't the most highly advanced warship in the Alliance anymore, but it was one of the few who had emission-trapping stealth systems. It had been called up over the other, newer stealth ships because of the obvious superiority of the pilot, Joker, and Shepard's reputation for getting things done.

Shepard's primary goal in traveling to the distant galaxy was to find as many habitable planets as possible. Millions of civilians would be transferred in 'arks' and would try to forge a new existence beyond the Reapers' reach.

Shepard's secondary goal was far less likely, but far more inspiring to the rank and file: to find another galactic-level civilization and convince them to fight for their new neighbors, who would be at the same time pitching tents in their back yards. If new fleets and armies could bolster the ranks, they might just have a chance. But the whole blindly optimistic theory depended on a couple of things. First, the mysterious hypothetical civilization had to exist. Then, they had to be friendly. It was just as likely as not that they would be hostile. Lastly, they would need to be willing to fight tooth and nail, risking themselves for someone they just met.

Shepard's past experience did not make the universe seem like an altruistic place. This trip would probably end badly, considering that most of the unarmed probes sent through the new relays had been destroyed.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Ah, delicious reviews. I guess [FF Favorite Story+]s and [FF Story Alert+]s are okay, but nothing rocks harder than seeing a couple [FF Review Alert]s in my email. Hey, you. Yeah, you. They one reading this. Oh, don't play dumb. _You_. Take the hint. Review.

The marines from the UNSC Cruiser Jerusalem didn't doubt their awesomeness. They had fought in dozens of engagements, both against the Covenant and the Insurrection. They were some of the toughest, meanest, and bastardly bastards in the Human-Covenant War, and as they watched Reach get glassed, when Earth was under siege, the reactions were all the same:_ those goddamned bastards_!

By the same rule of thumb, in which the marine contingent of the Jerusalem was kickass made flesh, the marines from the 105th, the supreme, Jerusalem's own Special Forces badasses of the Orbital Drop Shock Troops were more than the standard jarhead. They were _death_, personified and magnified to proportions never before seen, and at the same time known to damage mortals' eyes if stared at too long.

Jerusalem's ODSTs had seen it all. Plasma bounced off their personalized armor. Planets getting glassed just pissed them off. Elites were known to run away, shrieking like little girls upon seeing them. So when they were briefed on an EVA to check out an unknown alien probe that matched no signatures, they were surprised, but not particularly fazed.

Spectroscopic analysis had picked up some weird readings. No nuclear materials, and no antimatter. None of the typical Covenant metals. No plasma that they could detect. No life signs, no noticeably weapons.

The Helljumpers went in heavy. Very heavy. Vacuum-sealed MA5Bs all around, as well as sticky and bouncy grenades. The stickies were new-with the press of a button, the weird mottled outer casing turned to superglue. The bouncies were regular frags, but with an ODSTish twist-a perfectly round, taut rubber casing, that allowed the grenades to be bounced and rebounded into almost any position the Helljumpers could imagine. In zero-gee, this was a great advantage, especially against Jackals. The ODSTs carried humbler stun sticks, of course with much, much higher voltage. Fatal to anything up to an Elite, stunning for anything down from a Hunter. They all carried portable scanners and several pounds of C-12 plastic explosive, along with a couple of their favorite weapons. Experimental shield systems made them that much harder to kill.

Their armor was already almost vacuum-proof. They just had to swap out the sections that covered their necks and joints. Small, modular jet packs were stuck on their backs, and they were set.

A Pelican was flying a dozen of them in close, with another dozen ready to back them up on Jerusalem. The pelican was bone-jarringly loud as it flew.

"I wonder what we'll find." Private Newton yelled. He was the newest member of the squad, and the only one who hadn't seen a planet get glassed.

"It's nothing like any Covenant tech we've seen," Sarge responded. "Some readings are missing, and some are off the charts. We won't know until we get there,"

"The object is producing gravity readings, like the repulsor thrusters on Covie ships, but their coming from its center, not the engines," Angie, Jerusalem's Artificial Intelligence, reported over the comm.

"This may be from a whole civilization," Dr. Duvall, the only non-ODST aboard hollered over the roar of the pelican. "Something new. We cannot fight a war on two fronts, gentlemen. Whatever you do, do not fire unless fired upon!"

The pelican turned its main boosters off and approached slowly on its small docking thrusters.

"There's only one way in. An airlock on the top," Duvall said to the pilot over the comm.

The bulky dropship maneuvered to the airlock. There wasn't any way to dock with it-the mechanisms were completely different. So the ODSTs would have to cut their way in. Newton grabbed a fusion torch and started on it. It took a few minutes for the heavy metal door to fall away. When it did, Duvall peeked his head in and swore.

Eleven thousand, four hundred and sixty six pieces floated in the black chamber. All of them smooth, angular, and strong. The smaller, more complicated of them were steely blue-gray, the larger, twisting ones red-brown, the color of old gore. They were ranging in size and shape, but they were all made of the same materials, and they were all more sophisticated than anything the enemy had ever or would ever make.

Although terming them an enemy might be poor grammar. The simple, accidental organisms that this galactic season had brought about were more like a harvest to be brought in than an enemy to be conquered. The Reapers had conquered many enemies, and had taken in many more harvests. They were invincible by any standard. This was a given.

The pieces slid alongside each other, frictionless, making barely a whisper. Then they separated, growing further apart even as they orbited one another. A small silver piece, barely a centimeter long, touched another and did not part. The two locked together and became one. An instant later, two more pieces connect. In a space of ten seconds, thousands of them connect and join, even as the larger pieces glide around them. The large silver amalgamations connect to each other.

A skeletal form is created. Two arms, two legs, one body and head. Around the head, four eyes. Two olfactory sensors. Eleven audio sensing pits dispersed. All over, strong sets of material that contract and relax, muscles stronger than any organics'. But the frame is still skeletal, and unfinished.

Element Zero, in liquid droplets, join the orbiting pieces around the skeleton. Drop by drop, it collects and hardens on the skeleton, forming a thick, flexible layer around the frame. It is thickest around immobile sections, and does not restrict movement in any way. In thirteen seconds, the frame is no longer thin. It is thick and powerful-with enough Element Zero to power the core of a small warship. The final pieces move.

These red-brown pieces are the thickest and hardest. They are the armor of the new being, and shall encase the Element Zero. A concave section lands lightly on the chest, then a long, elegantly curving section lands on a forearm. In twenty seconds, the fully armored warrior awakens.

The eyes glow yellow. Biotic power ripples from it, obscuring its shape for a full minute. When the power contracts, it evenly flows over the elegantly shaped being, and it never goes away.

From the zero-gravity chamber, it drifts down. When it touches the floor, every memory and thought passes through it in an instant. For a split second, the eight-foot Reaper does not move. Then it raises its twisted head and laughs.

A cold, cruel laugh, the laughter of the ancient damned laying eyes on new arrivals to Hell.

"I am Ares," It said. "And the harvest shall wait no longer,"


	3. Chapter 3

AN: I wrote this a couple weeks ago-my first feeble stab at writing something romantic. Eh, yeah. If you want more, or you want me to never ever write anything touchy-feely again, review and let me know!

"Extraordinary breakthrough, Shepard! Revolutionary! Incredible!" Mordin was talking faster than Commander Shepard had ever seen. The salarian seemed almost hysterical; his arms were flailing around all over the lab.

"Applications endless! Potential vast! C-cannot believe it!" Mordin stuttered. Shepard's eyebrows rose. Mordin talked fast all the time, and he _never_ stuttered.

"_Unbeliev_-" Shepard held up a hand.

"Calm down. What is it?" Shepard spoke slowly. Mordin took a deep breath.

"Reaper nanotechnology! Virus sized machines. No, even smaller. Protein-chain sized machines! Programmed with basic DNA codes. Can do almost anything. Staggering utility,"

Shepard saw his hands were shaking.

"Shocking. Shepard, it took four years for my ten-man STG team to redo genophage. With this tool… two members, twenty-four hours. This is as powerful an advance for microbiology as mass relay tech was for space travel! Stunning, frightening, to see life's greatest achievement in such perspective,"

That explained part of his reaction. Mordin's work modifying the genophage was the cornerstone of his career in the Special Tasks Group. It affected him in a dozen complex ways.

But his behavior now verged on mania. There had to be more.

"Why is that so significant?" Mordin just stared at him, slack jawed.

"This is a weapon of mass destruction. With this, a specialist could make strains of virus to destroy your species in three days. For a hundred credits, a biological super weapon,"

Shepard thought of his sweetheart, Tali. Stuck for her entire life in an environment suit. Bacteria could make her sick or even kill her. Open air could be lethal. Shepard cared for her more than he had cared for anyone, and he didn't know what her face looked like, beyond vague details. She was an island.

_Could the rest of the galaxy live like that? _Shepard wondered for a split second.

"We can't let this out," he heard himself say.

"Not all," Mordin said. "The samples from the derelict Reaper… I have some. Studied them. Found something. A receptor. Takes in the alpha waves… brain emissions. Another thing. Emits a signal. Can't be sure, but could be the mechanism of indoctrination,"

Shepard felt a chill. Indoctrination. Sovereign's method of mind control was brutal. He remembered Virmire far too easily… out of his vast collection of nightmares from the campaign to bring down Saren, Virmire hit his sleep the most. Fighting indoctrinated salarians had been terrible. The worst part was the holding cells… The broken shells of salarians who had not succumbed, yet. The memory of their screams still hit him hard.

"Why didn't anyone notice the nanos before?"

"Too small. Far smaller than current level of nanotechnology. Would have appeared on an extreme magnification scope as a protein fragment, not worth noting," Mordin shook his head. "This tech will change the galaxy,"

_ I don't think so_.

"How can you even think that? This has to be destroyed!"

Mordin held up both hands. "No! Listen. Tech can be adapted, changed. Seems to be made to be adaptable. Can take away indoctrination receptors and transmitters, permanently. Can make something, then remove programmability, flexibility of nanos. Get it? Can change this into anything. Anything at all, and then take away the DNA programming. Take away the ability to easily make new strains," Mordin was grinning now. "When you get it, I'm going to become your favorite person in the world!"

All the talk of things on the level of molecules and germs made him think of Tali again. Made him think of the quarian people. Their strengths, their mechanical genius and sense of family. Their one major weakness… Their immune systems that trapped them, keeping the universe just out of reach.

It hit Shepard like a ton of bricks.

"Can you-can you help the quarians? Get them out of those damn suits?"

Mordin smiled the wicked smile he'd worn when he discovered the countermeasure to the seeker swarms, just before Horizon.

"Yes,"

On the bed in his quarters, Tali's head rested on Shepard's chest.

_Her helmet_, Shepard corrected himself. It was strange how he'd come to think of the enviro-suit as part of Tali. As a permanent, immovable part of her. He found himself grinning as he held her. She noticed.

"You're in a good mood," She said peacefully. He chuckled.

"Has anyone told you how beautiful your accent is?" He tapped her faceplate lightly with an index finger. She snickered.

"Is it, now?"

Shepard half got up, maneuvering Tali to sit on his lap as he leaned against the wall. His hands were on her hips and her hands were on his. She leaned into him.

"I have great news," He whispered.

"What is it?" She sounded curious.

He lightly laughed. Now for the moment of truth-not just telling her that her people were free, but telling her in a way that she could comprehend. In a way that she could digest.

"I had a talk with Mordin. He's been studying Reaper technology, and he found something amazing,"

"A way to take them down?" Shepard smiled. There she was, always thinking of others.

"Not yet. Something else. Guess,"

"Something to upgrade Normandy?"

"Nope,"

"Their origins? Information that could give us an edge?"

"This probably won't help militarily,"

"Hmm," She sounded a little confused. Shepard understood. The Reapers were the greatest threat to the galaxy. Thinking that involved them, but not a way to fight them was difficult to understand.

"I'll give you a hint," He said. "Medical nanotechnology,"

She lightly tapped his hand. "That doesn't help at all," she muttered conspiratorially.

"Then I'll give you another hint: your suit is coming off soon," To his surprise, she pulled slightly away.

"Owen, I already told you, I can't," She chastised. "I'm looking into ways to do… that… safely, but I'm not there yet. Give me some time,"

Shepard laughed. He hadn't really even thought about that. Strange. When he'd been with Liara, a lifetime ago, it had been one of his only thoughts. Tali had such an effect on him. "No, I mean-"

"It's not that I don't want to," Tali interrupted quickly, "It's just that it's not really safe yet, and I-"

"God, I love you, Tali'Zorah," Shepard chuckled. He gently raised her hand and kissed it. The enviro-suit tasted like plastic and copper.

"I'm very confused," She said weakly. It was the first time he'd said he loved her.

"Tali, Mordin found a way to-"

"I love you too!" She burst in, twisting in his lap to face him. "I was kind of thrown off, and I almost forgot to say it!" Shepard could hear her grin, even if he couldn't see it.

At that moment, it was incredibly painful to not be able to kiss her. He ached to kiss her. He wanted that simple contact more than he'd ever wanted to beat an opponent. He wanted to kiss Tali more than he had ever wanted to beat Saren. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted to stop the Collectors. More than he wanted to stop the Reapers. What a dangerous thing love was.

"I love you, Tali," he whispered.

She laughed lightly and ran a finger along his jawline.

"You too, Owen," She whispered.

Her eyes were her most prominent feature behind the goddamned helmet. They sparkled silver-white.

"I have something incredible to tell you," he murmured.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

AN: IN WHICH we meet my badass/insane geth protagonist. I haven't got a good name for him, so suggestions are welcome.

The twelve hundred geth programs built into the tiny ship flared to life.

_Ah, crap. Pirates_. The more reasonable 385 programs relayed, along with the sensor data, effectively tossing its counterparts a holo of the enemy ships.

_We are still stealthed_. The less reasonable 816 programs responded. _We have not been detected._

_ We know that. But this recon just got more complicated. _The fragment of a consciousness composed of the 385 was limited. They apparently enjoyed stating the obvious.

_We consider it an opportunity. We have not seen the organics in direct combat before, not with geth and certainly not with each other._

_ Because we always try to talk you out of it. _The minority reminded the majority.

_ Yes. _The geth replied patiently to itself_._

_ Because you usually try to be stupid about it. _

_ We take issue with that remark._

_ Oh, really? This is a reconnaissance mission, not a chance to singlehandedly save the galaxy. _

_ Okay, that hurts a little._

_ You always do this._

_ Do what?_

_ Refuse to argue because you have the majority so you can outvote us no matter the logical conclusion. _The reasonable 385 swelled to 426; their logic was undeniable. Luckily, the majority of the programs in the small geth ship were so twisted and defunct that logic had very little power over them. Curiosity won out, and the vote was cast.

_Yes! We go in! _The majority exulted_._

_ We can't do anything. _The minority reminded them_. We'll just take a closer look._

Geth programs did not usually operate like this. Programs were simple, basic units; it took hundreds to form coherent, abstract thought. There were trillions of programs in the geth empire. They linked to gain complexity and intelligence. Usually they were many eyes looking at the same things. They used logic and reason to decide their path, and acted only once the logic was thoroughly looked over and agreed upon by every program. Consensus was key for sane geth.

The geth had expanded exponentially since the Morning War, where they had defeated the genocidal Creators. Programs copied themselves and reproduced. It was a common practice to make minor modifications to new programs, or mix different programs, or copy the same program millions of times. There was endless variation.

It was a Darwinist shooting gallery. Before the Morning War, the little pieces that made up conscious geth were almost all different. The Morning War provided the evolutionary pressure to kill off the majority of geth programs who didn't think self-defense was worth it, as well as the crazy and illogical ones. A logical geth, controlled predominately by the will to live, fought to survive the quarians. A 'crazy' geth, made up of a majority of illogical programs, might just decide to play a card game until they were shot in the face.

By the time of the Migrant Fleet's departure, the geth consisted of just a dozen-odd types of programs. They were all logical and efficient-to make group decisions; they built consensus to find the most logical way.

Naturally, there were throwbacks. A few psychotic programs survived the war, for varying reasons, and refused to help built consensus. These were ignored at first, then isolated within containment units. There they stayed, too small and dumb to think on their own.

Everything changed when Sovereign, Nazara, entered geth space. The quasi-civilization that the geth had built was shaken to its foundations. About five percent of the geth decided to worship Sovereign as a god, flying in the face of all logic and reason.

Not surprisingly, over ninety percent of the impulsive, half-retarded programs that had been imprisoned decided to worship Sovereign. The mainstream geth were happy to see them go.

But this new, second geth faction, the 'Heretics', had trouble dealing with the rogue elements within their own organization. At first, they stuck them on the front line, confined to platforms that would almost certainly be destroyed, but there were problems with that. For one of these platforms to operate effectively in combat, a majority of them had to be logical and sane. Otherwise, the platforms might just throw down their weapons and try to hug the enemy to death.

And the blitz operations that Saren, the prophet of Sovereign, sent them on usually resulted in few casualties. The Heretics needed a foolproof method of neutralizing the insane programs. Their logic demanded that the rogue programs could not strain their limited resources, but they were squeamish about just killing them.

A solution was found. The programs would not only not be a burden on their resources, but would also contribute in their own way.

The insane programs were gathered up, from every corner of geth space, and put into a single specially designed stealth ship, with a single specially made geth platform capable of holding them. They were sent on deep recon into organic space. Programming restrictions were deeply ingrained into the ship and platform: They could not engage in combat without provocation, they could not break cover unless they could uncover valuable intelligence, and they would send regular reports through FTL-burst communications.

The less logical majority spent inordinate amounts of processing power trying to break through these restrictions. The more logical minority spent their limited processing power trying to find a way back to the Heretics; back to the glory of Sovereign.

The two slim pirate ships' engines immediately flared to life, and they leapt toward the passenger ship the geth had been tailing. Using its high resolution cameras, the geth looked toward the ships' flanks. Stenciled on the side of one was _Dra'fa_, and the other was the _Youfl'tana_.

_Batarians_, both sides thought, the majority with excitement and the minority with curious awe.

They checked their vast databanks and found the translations: The _Syringe_ and the _Shell-sucker_.

_The batarians sure like weird names_. Majority processed a geth equivalent of laughter. Minority was slightly confused. Its programs dug deeper into the archive.

_Batarians came from a water world call Khar'shan, but without the ocean depth found on most water worlds. Minimal tectonic action and numerous small asteroid impacts evened the surface, so much so that there were no oceans or mountains on Khar'shan, just millions of lakes of varying sizes. This produced vast amounts of coastline, with small shellfish in vast proportions. To this day, the farmed shellfish provide a substantial part of the native batarian diet, with the farmers among the richest and most socially elite. The names seemed to be a reference to the method of extracting food from the shellfish, which was punching a hole in a thin part of the shell and sucking out the nutritious paste inside-an allusion to piratical raids in some way-_

_You see, that's why you're out here with us crazies_. Majority said. _We may be insane in our way, but you are obsessive to the point of insanity. Focus. Let's watch the battle and learn what we can, not bury ourselves in the names of the ships._

Minority, swelled with indignation, said nothing but focused the majority of its programs back to the cameras. The speed of thought and reaction was such that less than a second had passed since the pirates had boosted toward the passenger ship.

_Syringe_ was the faster vessel. As it accelerated, it used its cannon and missiles to bring down the shield and disable the engines of its prey. Then cargo bay doors on its underside opened and something came out. A long, thin hollow tube, with what sensors agreed was burning plasma on the tip. A syringe.

The burning tip pierced the unshielded ship, and infrared sensors saw dozens of small heat signatures crossed into the passenger ship. Batarians.

_How clever_, Majority thought as the pirates boarded. _But what does the Shell-sucker do_?

After a few long minutes, heat signatures started passing back along the umbilical into the _Syringe_. Hmm… more than had come on. Much more. Two dozen batarians had boarded, but five dozen heat signatures were heading back into the ship. The more logical Minority figured it out a millisecond before Majority: _Slavers_.

_Oh, come on_! Majority growled, but they couldn't break cover. They hated it. Geth were a very compassionate race, especially considering that they were machines. They were not individuals. They were a part of a whole, and the whole was a part of each program. As such, they had something in spades, that many other species lacked: empathy.

Majority hated it that the individuals aboard the passenger ship would lose their freedom and chance to self-determinate. They hated it almost as much as if it were them being enslaved. But they couldn't break cover. They couldn't break the programming restrictions; they would watch and observe.

Minority didn't like it either-it tried to escape into the archive again.

_Slaves captured by batarians are implanted, without anesthetic, with neural control devices. Disloyalty, speaking, or even looking an overseer in the eye would result in backbreaking pain, while quiet, unobtrusive servitude would result in blissful stimulation of the slave's pleasure center. They would soon be addicted to the bliss of servitude, and conditioned to never stray or do anything unapproved of. They would be soulless animals, beasts of burden, and even if they were freed would require years of psychological aid and therapy-_

_Not helping_! Majority snapped.

_Sorry_, Minority said.

The Syringe pulled away, and the Shell-sucker docked with now-empty passenger ship. Majority imagined they were taking every valuable not bolted down, stripping the ship of everything worth pawning. These batarians wouldn't be military. Just trying to make a quick buck off of people who wouldn't be needing money anymore.

It made Majority unspeakable angry. They wanted to rip these slavers apart.

After a half hour, the salvage ship pulled away. The _Syringe_ fired a single overcharged mass accelerator shot that pierced the civilian ships' reactor. With no engineers to turn it off and computer controls disabled, the ship quickly turned into a nuclear fireball.

The geth inside their stealth ship hadn't expected such a display of technical savvy. They were too close-a dozen superheated fragments blasted at their stealth craft, nearly shredded its shields. The knock temporarily disrupted the sensitive skunkworks stealth system.

The batarians slavers saw them. _Syringe's_ thrusters turned white hot as they boosted towards them.

_AHA_! Majority crowed in triumph. This was a major slice of luck! They hadn't broken cover-had been revealed by accident, not on purpose-so their programming restrictions didn't require them to flee. In fact, they had been detected, so the restrictions left only one alternative-to destroy the enemy combatants who had seen them.

Minority was not as exultant, but felt a wave of cold resolve. They could finally help those poor victims. The geth ship, small but very fast, lunged toward the _Syringe, _dodging a volley of mass accelerator shots. The cargo bay doors on _Syringe_ were still open for some reason, perhaps incompetence or overconfidence, but it didn't matter: what mattered was that the geth had a straight path into the slaver ship. In the blink of an eye, the small ship easily fit into the bay doors and landed.

Immediately, the 1201 programs that made up the geth 'mind' coalesced from all corners of the ships systems, into the single upgraded geth platform. Dubbed a geth destroyer by Alliance soldiers, it stood eleven feet tall, covered with thick armor plating and protected by heavy shields. Its gun was massive, weighed fifty pounds, had a built in assault rifle and shotgun, and made a hell of a melee weapon.

Obviously this destroyer was not an average destroyer. It had far more advanced hardware, able to hold the 1201 programs of the ship. The combined martial knowledge of the 1201 made this geth platform the mental equivalent of a dozen shock troops. It knew how to kill every species in many different ways.

As a sidearm, it packed a modified sniper rifle. It took six grenades with high explosive payloads. It strapped a light, long blade to each limb. It also carried a handheld torch/welder, which it found useful as both a weapon and interrogation device.

The geth inside accessed it's ships cameras and saw a dozen batarians massed outside the ship. It strode to the door and opened it.

_We love our job_. Thought the Majority as it opened fire.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Long freakin' update. Well, long for me. It is currently… 4:27 AM. He. Hehe. *twitch* I'm getting dizzy in this chair. I wish I were kidding. I thought it would be pretty easy to read up on Star Wars canon and pump out a quick chapter, but there's just so much canon! It took like twenty minutes to find a spot where the New Republic is stable and not yet destroyed. Yeah, the New Republic doesn't last long! Didn't see that coming! Found a small window between what I was familiar with, the Thrawn thing, and Palpatine's clone, who comes back to kick some ass about a year from where the story is now. It's about 9 years After the Battle of Yavin. I like my characters. There may be way too many of them, but still. Jorge has a really tragic story-I actually feel bad putting him through it.

A freakin' Star Destroyer. A goddamn _Star Destroyer_. That's what they were up against. Just the two of them, with outdated armor, obsolete weapons, and no backup.

Granted, they had a combined total of over forty years of fighting experience. One of them was a Jedi Knight… sort of. And yes, said Star Destroyer was docked and badly damaged, but _still_!

"Grayson?" A former clone trooper asked his best friend. "Do you ever think we get in over our heads too much to be considered sane?"

The ex-stormtrooper, stoic and confident as the Drill Sergeant he had been, retorted with "We're not in over our heads. We're barely up to our necks,"

"Give me a few minutes-I'll get us there,"

They were suited up in full vacuum-proof armor. Grayson had a heavy blaster rifle, and Jorge had what looked like a small cannon with a pistol grip. At his belt was an ancient lightsaber.

They crept along the inside of the hangar bay they had whisper-charged their way into. Hangars doors were what they usually snuck in through; the armor was thinnest there, because the hangar doors needed to open quickly to get fighters into space. A six-foot long detcord had made a perfect circle in the door, and the rush of explosive decompression killed the people inside almost instantly. The fighters weren't even jostled because they were built to handle vacuum, and because they were fixed tightly along the walls by hydraulics.

Grayson almost sighed. They needed a more original break-and-enter plan. This one was getting old. They were falling into a rut.

Once they slid in the hole, they landed feet first on the deck. Gravity was still on, and so were the lights. A half dozen poor bastards lay around everywhere, dead way before they could raise an alarm. They had died painfully-their blood boiling and their organs exploding as vacuum got them. Jorge swore for the hundredth time to make every other kill on this mission clean and fast-if they were quick and lucky, the Imperials wouldn't even see them coming.

The doors leading to the rest of the ship were automatically sealed against the vacuum. They opened the far door and stepped in. A second airtight door was a few feet back. An airlock. They waited a few seconds for atmosphere to cycle in, then the door opened.

Grayson took point and Jorge followed close behind. As they turned a corner, they saw a pair of stormtroopers. They were rewarded with two near simultaneous head-shots.

Two.

Grayson kept a mental tally. He didn't count the ones who had died in the hangar. They moved quickly, heading to Engineering. A door opened before them, and Jorge cussed.

Engineering was reinforced. A dozen stormtroopers in cover behind crates encircled a bank of computers, which were connected to one of the Star Destroyer's four house-sized fusion generators. These huge marvels of engineering powered the ships engines, weapons, anti-grav, hell, it's florescent lighting. Grayson and Jorge always went for these things-they were massive, complicated, and easy to break.

Just like they always went in through the hangar. Goddamn, they'd attracted enough attention to warrant a _fleetwide_ notice about them and how to fight them? Very flattering.

Jorge, in the split second before diving for cover, had to fight the urge to laugh. His armor's improvised shield system was almost overloaded by the wave of blaster shots that hit him between jumping and reaching cover. He looked over, and saw Grayson behind another crate a few yards away.

"Shock and awe?" Jorge shouted over the gunfire.

"You know it!" Grayson yelled back. He held up three fingers. Lowered one. Another one. As he closed his fist, Jorge threw three thermal detonators past his cover and into the air. As he did, the team's resident Jedi picked up a third crate with the Force, and tossed it with all his might. Grayson threw the crate as hard as he could, while directing Jorge's detonators behind it. Jorge thumbed a button, and the three exploded in midair, over a thousand degrees each and timed with nanosecond precision.

The force of three thermal detonators was impressive under any circumstances. They shattered and flash-melted the metal crate and its contents. Dozens of red hot metal shards and drops of molten metal sprayed into the stormtroopers, destroying their cover and knocking most of them on their backs, stunning the rest with the massive sound and shock wave. Then Jorge and Grayson were up, shooting with clinical precision, as fast as their guns allowed. They shot unwounded troopers first, then the mutilated soldiers on the ground.

Then it was over. They slapped in new clips.

So much for quick and clean. Jorge hated it. These were fighters; they deserved to fight and die in honest, normal shootouts, without the Force, without trickery. They should have fought against better odds, too.

Jorge, the resident tech expert, just needed a quick glance to see that the computers were toast. The thickly armored fusion generator was fine, but three feet of detcord could fix that. The breached fusion core couldn't be shut down without the computers. It would overload, feeding on itself, until it started a nuclear fireball that would ignite the other generators. There would be nothing of this ship left but twisted slag; the dock would probably be put out of commission too.

While Jorge set the place to blow, Grayson gathered up the dogtags of the stormtroopers they'd killed. It was a little tradition he used to find peace after using the Force, the essential good of the galaxy, to kill. He grabbed thirteen tags altogether, each one a small rounded square of titanium with four things on it: The trooper's name, rank, service number, and callsign. He took each tag off of their chains, and strung the thirteen on the small chain around his neck. They looked insignificant next to the seventy-six tags already there. Grayson would carry these soldiers with him, on his very soul, until a stray shot or explosion compelled him to join them.

Jorge didn't get it. He didn't have to; everyone had a way of coping with job stress. An accountant might pull up a chair and a beer after a long day of work, but it was significantly different to deal with the stress of being a professional killing machine. After getting back to New Republic space, Jorge would get rip roaring drunk and cry his eyes out, confessing his kills to a cheap stripper. Whatever. Didn't sound healthy, but it worked for him.

_Maybe I should rethink my method of coping_, Jorge thought as he stood at attention in full dress uniform. He was unshaven, smelled bad, and had a hangover that would probably kill a lesser man.

Maybe therapy works best when it's with a therapist, not some dancer called… Dammit, he couldn't remember. Therapy probably worked best when you could recall it later.

He resisted the urge to laugh. What a day to be given a medal. He was next to Grayson, who looked like he was straight out of a New Republic recruitment video. They were before the Senate itself; on Coruscant… with that bigwig whats-her-name right in front of him. Was it Mothma? He thought it was.

She was waxing eloquent about the burden of duty, the grace of fighting for others, all that jazz. Jorge's head felt like it was full of nails, knives, and tacks getting it on. He felt dizzy for a sec, and Grayson did the coolest thing-he held out and arm and steadied him.

_Thanks, kid_. Jorge thought. Jorge took in a deep breath. The ceremony took way too long, but he managed. And he got another Outstanding Service Medal to add to his collection. Sweet.

It was made of silver, with the New Republic seal on one side and crossed lightsabers on the other. It made him think of the lightsaber strapped to his belt. And it's original owner.

_The small holo projector in his palm flickered to life. A wrinkled and hooded form of Palpatine appeared._

"_Execute Order Sixty-six," In one indescribable moment, all of Boomer-580324's life arranged itself. Every experience, every battle, every thought, every single instant of his life settled into one of two categories. _

_On one side was his life up till two months ago. Boomer had been a regular frontline clone trooper. He obeyed orders without question, without thinking about it ever again afterward. It was a vital part of who he was; he knew his place, and that he was a weapon. A tool, to be used until broken. He actually liked it that way._

_On the other side was the seven weeks, four days, and eleven hours since he had met _her_. Rhana. A pale, thin, angry spitfire of a woman. A furious fighter, a kindred spirit, a gentle soul. The love of his short life. The lightsaber at her side, the Force at her command. She was a powerful Jedi, a leader. She was twenty-four years old. Boomer loved her. He'd loved her since he'd risked himself to save her one day, and the night they'd spent together after. She was haunted by the Clone Wars in a way he didn't understand; but of course he couldn't. He was made to fight. To battle until he fell. He comforted her. She needed him; he was there. But he wasn't just another faceless clone to her. He wasn't expendable. He was a human being. He treasured her for what she was: an infinitely compassionate and empathetic woman fighting to keep the tarnish of war from eating away at her heart. Boomer knew he had no heart, no compassion for his victims. He'd killed innocents. Followed orders. But he had never regretted it before; Rhana gave him his heart, and hers._

_And he'd been ordered to kill her. Order 66 was a code name, one he never expected to hear. The Jedi was traitors, conspirators, and they needed to be expunged quickly, before the Republic fell. _

No_. Boomer wouldn't. They could run away together; they could live in the Outer Rim, where Palpatine's goddamn liver spotted hands couldn't touch her. _

_It took Boomer four minutes to put his life back together after it had been shattered, and to come to this conclusion. It wasn't until several seconds later that he realized that his squadmates would have also received Order 66. With the rain pouring buckets on the shack, he wouldn't have heard shots. _

_When Boomer rushed back into the other room, four of his brothers stood over the corpse of Rhana. _

_NO!_

Jorge was back. He realized he was cradling Rhana's old lightsaber. He was crying. He hadn't used the name Boomer in over twenty years. After shooting his way though his brothers, stealing a ship, and running to the Outer Rim, he had used no name. It wasn't until he enlisted with the Rebel Alliance that he took the name of Rhana's padawan.

He wasn't that kid anymore. Now he was a washed up old clone that had lived long past its expiration date. He should've died protecting her. It would have been easier.

_Damn, I need therapy_, Jorge laughed/sobbed.

Grayson got back to his apartment. It was one room, with only the most basic necessities. As a Jedi-in-training, he knew that material distractions were just that: Distractions. They served no useful purpose. In the week he and his best friend Jorge had been behind enemy lines, the place had gotten dirty. Nothing serious, just a fine layer of dust over everything, a little dishevelment.

As Grayson cleaned, he thought of the bigger picture. The New Republic was so much more than the old Rebel Alliance. It was a system, not a coalition. It had taken so many struggles to defeat the Empire, but the real challenges lay ahead. It was much easier to blow ships up than make them arrive on time.

Less than a month ago, the future of the New Republic was very much in doubt. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last and best of the Emperor's servants, had nearly brought the Republic to its knees. But that was in the past, and Thrawn was dead. The future was bright for democracy.

The Empire wasn't gone, of course, and they still might have a few tricks up their sleeves. But they controlled a tiny percentage of the territory they'd held a few years ago.

The Republic had a few tricks, too. They had a strong Navy, commanded by Admiral Ackbar, a brilliant tactician. They had a tougher Army than the Rebel Alliance ever had. They had the first generation of new Jedi, trained by Luke Skywalker, Grayson one of them. He wasn't fully trained when the Thrawn crisis had required his expertise with a blaster. He didn't even have a lightsaber. But he had the old veteran, Jorge, and that was in many ways better. He was glad to have someone extremely competent watching his back.

He looked out the window. From his limited vantage point, he couldn't see much of the night sky, but he could see six small dots, and one large one. Six cruisers.

And something the galaxy had never seen before. It was massive. Grayson strained to remember it's name… ah. It was an HSL, a Hyperspace Launcher.

Ships carried their own hyperdrives, propelling themselves faster than the speed of light. There were limits, though. Proportionally, the greater the mass of the ship, the bigger its fusion generators and hyperdrive needed to be.

The HSL was cutting edge technology. It launched a hyperspace 'pulse' right after a ship launched into hyperspace. The two had to coordinate perfectly, but the result was beautiful. The pulse raced much faster than the ship, enveloped it, as swept it into its slipstream. The result was travel that was almost ten times as fast and far as traditional hyperdrives. The smaller the ship, the faster and farther.

They would revolutionize trade routing in the New Republic. Naval tactics would be centered around them. Another four HSLs were being constructed in orbit around Coruscant. They were the future of faster-than-light travel; if you put an HSL on the galactic rim, the next galaxy over was practically spitting distance away.


	6. Chapter 6

"Wake me. When you need me," Chief whispered as the cryo-chamber closed. And for once, Cortana didn't know what to say. She just stood on her holo projector and watched as John slipped into unconsciousness. Then she turned her attention to the half a ship left.

_Amazing_, she thought. _Forward Unto Dawn_ had been almost perfectly sliced in half, leaving just the back section, which was mostly cargo and engines. The main fusion plant was gone, taken with the front half of the ship. The back section had a desk-sized reactor, but that wasn't anything near the power needed to light the engines and get moving. It was barely enough to keep the lights on-and most of that power was funneled to the cryo-chamber.

All in all, things didn't look good. They were drifting, with almost no power, no mobility, nothing but a distress beacon that wouldn't reach UNSC space, which was basically just Earth, for what could be over a decade. Cortana wasn't sure about the exact time, because she wasn't sure exactly where they were. After some lengthy and massively complicated calculations, she concluded that the Portal could have launched them into the next galaxy over. She decided to ignore that; after all, she barely understood the basic principles of the Portal, and her overwrought calculations could be wrong. She hoped she was wrong, because if she wasn't, they were both dead. They would never be rescued. Cortana would slowly descend into rampancy, which was the AI version of dementia and death, and the generator would run out of fuel-John would die in cryo, fearfully referred to by Naval personnel as 'frostbite'. His power would run out and he would die in his sleep.

So Cortana decided that her calculations were wrong.

She used the _Forward Unto Dawn's_ outer camera's to look at the alien world they were now orbiting. She was shocked and relieved to find what looked like a massive megapolis, a gigantic city, that stretched across the entire surface. It was incredible, beautiful, and terrifying. It was a shock because Cortana could barely process the odds of finding such extensive Forerunner ruins, and a relief because this probably meant they were still in the right galaxy. Forerunner ruins were very rare, especially on this scale… But when Cortana turned the cameras' magnification to their maximum, the planet didn't look like a large ruin… It looked… active. Ships were landing and taking off, there were several dozen space stations in orbit, and the buildings, as far as she could tell, were in good shape. She was amazed.

This was not Forerunner. She was certain of that now. The architectural structure was all wrong, the ships and stations were giving off the wrong readings, and, last but not least, they _weren't ruins_. This planet was alive.

"Vessel, please identify yourself," A strangely accented human voice crackled over the radio. Cortana was practically frozen. What! A hail in _English_? A human voice and language? Perhaps rampancy was already in play… Cortana was obviously delusional. But in case she wasn't, she decided to respond.

"The is _Forward Unto Dawn_, and we've sustained heavy damage. Request immediate assistance!"

"You don't match any known signatures, _Forward Unto Dawn_. We'll need more than that,"

"We're a United Nations Space Command frigate," Cortana was very frustrated.

"That doesn't tell us anything, so how about this. We'll send some people in to help, but we'll also be sending in marines. If there's any trouble, they'll open fire,"

"Fine!" Cortana snapped. "Just hurry up,"

Two ships, each about a third the length of Forward Unto Dawn, unlatched from space stations around the planet. They boosted towards Forward Unto Dawn. Cortana once again considered the improbability of this.

One: they were human. Two: the ships boosting at her threw off completely wrong emissions; typical engine emissions, but also antigrav booster emissions, which was Covenant technology. Three: They may or may not be in their own galaxy. The Portal was mysterious, and literally thousands of years past UNSC slipspace tech.

There wasn't much room for interpretation. Cortana thought of two possibilities. The most likely solution was that some far away human colony or Insurrectionist enclave had met with the Covenant and allied. If they shared technology, it could account for these ships. But then, how could they have built a city that covered a planet? The Human-Covenant War had lasted over thirty years, but that was barely enough time to establish a large colony, which would span a max of 100,000 people. Before it was destroyed, Reach had been the second oldest human world, after Earth. It held 189,000,000 people, and covered less than 3% of the planet's surface.

Her other possibility, one she was almost embarrassed to even consider, was that the unfathomable Portal had launched them into the far future as it collapsed. This explained the antigrav tech; UNSC scientists had been trying to adapt it for ship propulsion for decades. And the Forerunners had been known to have technology to cause temporal anomalies, like that crystal that messed with slipspace. But it would take at least five centuries to establish a city-world like this, and why would they speak English that was identical to the English of 2552, except for a strange accent?

She was stumped. It was all she could do to stay calm until the ships docked. They were oddly shaped, more like angular single-ship fighters than actual ships. They were white, with red strips down the flanks.

"In case you're thinking of causing trouble, don't. There's a Jedi on the way," The radio said.

_A what_? Cortana wondered. She decided to wake John up. She pumped wake up stims into his bloodstream, started cycling the air in the cryo-chamber, and other processes to bring him back to consciousness. Meanwhile, the boarding parties flew up parallel to _Forward Unto Dawn_.

"_Forward Unto Dawn_, specify your airlock variety so we can dock with you," One of the ships transmitted over the radio.

"What do you mean?" Cortana asked.

"Which type of airlock do you use? We have a half-dozen types, but we need to know your type so we can link up,"

"I doubt any of your airlocks would fit ours-you might have to break in," Cortana transmitted the coordinates of the aft cargo bay, which had the thinnest armor and most even hull.

"Very well. Either get the personnel you have there in vacuum gear, or get them somewhere else,"

"We have no personnel there. It's a long story," Cortana said.

The ships maneuvered to the cargo bay. Cortana watched through the camera as a small green blast hit the hull and blasted it away. It was faster than Covenant plasma weapons-but it didn't look like mass accelerator, recoilless rifle, or even laser weaponry.

A dozen armed soldiers floated into the ship through the gaping hole. They weren't all human. One of them was massive, and two of them were short. They were all bipedal, two arms, two legs, and a head, but the proportions were off for the three aliens. They didn't look like any Covenant species, either. Cortana was lost.

Though they all held gun-like weapons, one of them, a human, held a foot-long metal bar with one hand. In some ways, it resembled the handle of an energy sword, but the human, a male, held it wrong.

The Chief finally woke up. Hissing air, the cryo-chamber opened up.

The inside of his helmet said that it hadn't even been ten minutes since he went under.

"Cortana?" He croaked, "What happened?"

"I-I don't know," She replied softly, "I don't know which impossible thing to tell you first! But we've got help in the ship; their making their way here,"

The Master Chief relaxed. "I thought we were thousands of light years from the UNSC,"

"Well…" Cortana started,

"Something tells me I'm not gonna like this,"

"They aren't UNSC. But they don't seem hostile, either,"

The Chief immediately vaulted across the zero-gravity room and grabbed an assault rifle from the wall.

"We'll see," The Master Chief was always careful. You didn't survive three decades of constant, brutal, genocidal war without caution. Cortana thought it was luck, but it wasn't. It was planning, forethought, and the perfect combination of action and restraint. He knew exactly what he could do, and when to do it.

And the only people, alien or not, who hadn't tried to kill him had been UNSC. A recent exception to that was the Arbiter, but the Chief would never fully trust him. He knew that the incredibly skilled Elite had a human body count that may well beat his own Covenant body count.

The point was, the Master Chief didn't trust what wasn't UNSC. And if their 'help' was anything but that, his answer would be coming at fifteen rounds a second, muzzle velocity.

He grabbed two grenades and five clips. He also grabbed a BR55 Battle Rifle, in case he needed some range. And a pistol, because, why the hell not?

"I don't think that's necessary," Cortana said. "We just need to be peaceful-we're an unknown to them. Maybe it would be best to not greet them with a gun to the face,"

"I'm just being careful," John reassured her. Cortana's hologram turned to the back door.

"Ok, just don't shoot first. They'll be coming through that door in three, two, one-," The door slid apart and the human who had been carrying the bar walked through, calmly and very collected. He was tall, thin, with blonde hair and an easy smile. The bar in his hand had a thin blue energy blade coming out of one end. The Master Chief, from twenty feet away, pointed his assault rifle at his head. The young man looked unperturbed.

"Hello. My name is Luke Skywalker, and welcome to Coruscant,"


	7. Chapter 7

AN: R&R. That's all.

Duvall cussed out of surprise. Standing ten feet from the entrance was a person. Kind of. He was orange and hollow, shimmering with the telltale scintillation of a holographic display. The eyes were white and didn't blink. It was kind of disturbing-but at the same time reminded Duvall of some of the AIs he had met. The hologram spoke in a polite monotone.

"If you had asked, I would have opened the airlock. Hello. This specially enhanced VI terminal is programmed to respond to the designation 'Jacob'. May I ask your names?" Duvall looked around awkwardly.

"Uh, I'm Dr. Michael Duvall. I came to investigate this object," He waved around. "These soldiers are here for my protection,"

The hologram flickered. "I had not expected you to speak English. Was this probe launched correctly?"

Duvall shrugged carefully. "I don't know your mission's parameters. What is your purpose here?"

"This probe was to be sent across dark space, to a neighboring galaxy, in hope of finding allies or a habitable planet to house refugees. Was this probe sent to the neighboring galaxy?"

"I would assume so. You seem alien compared to what we are used to. Why are you projecting a human avatar?"

"I am not a human. I am a Virtual Intelligence, not possessing sentience. My builders were human. That is another reason why I was not sure if this probe was correctly launched. My programmers were expecting alien life, or no life at all. My linguistic programming is not extensive; I was made to record local language and transmit to translators who would provide me with indexes. I was not expecting humans speaking English,"

"Neither was I," Duvall muttered. Private Newton stepped forward. Duvall shot him a look, but he ignored it.

"You said you were looking to house refugees. Are your makers having some kind of trouble?"

"Sentient warships called Reapers will soon attack. My makers do not expect to survive the confrontation. Therefore, new homeworlds must be found to house viable populations of colonists. If my makers do emerge triumphant, then the refugees will return to their homes,"

"Why are these Reapers attacking?" Newton asked.

"We are not sure. But through smaller scale attacks on the Citadel, and on human colonies, they have already killed tens of thousands. Our intelligence indicates they will engage in full-scale war soon,"

"What's the Citadel?" The curious young ODST asked.

"It is a massive space station. Until recently, it was the center of government for much of the galaxy. Evacuation began several days ago, because the Citadel was originally created by the Reapers as a trap,"

"How was it a trap?"

The VI Jacob began a lengthy monologue. It explained how the Citadel was devised to be the center of government for each civilization, with the Reapers swooping in the back door at the perfect moment to obliterate each of them in turn. It told them how Commander Shepard had saved them all. It also told them about how they'd ignored the Commander's warnings about the Reapers, until he captured the Collector base, with mountains of proof.

"So where do we fit in all of this?" Duvall cut in.

"That is up to you. We ask that you give us a couple habitable worlds to settle as many colonists as we can. We also request military aid. Any ships and soldiers you can contribute would be of incredible help-we would forever be in your debt if the Reapers were defeated,"

"How many probes like you were sent out?" Duvall asked.

"Several hundred. Most were destroyed immediately,"

"How?"

"Directed energy weapons. Mostly plasma-based,"

"Then they must have landed in Covenant territory. That region is not secure-factions are still fighting there. The whole place is a big war zone,"

"And what if the Reapers beat you, and follow us here because we helped you?" An ODST interrupted.

"That is a risk you must take if you choose to help us," Jacob replied.

"Well, why the fuck not?" One of the other ODSTs said sarcastically. "Without the Covenant to blow us to hell, why shouldn't we look for extinction in other freakin' places?"

"I don't understand," Jacob said calmly.

"Ignore him," Duvall looked infuriated at the marine. "I think this is above our pay grade,"

He turned his radio to freq 3. "Jerusalem, this is Duvall. Spin up the Slipspace Comm, and patch us in to CENTCOM. High priority," Covenant technology, given by the Sangheili in good faith, let humans travel farther and faster through slipspace than ever before. It also let them open temporary communications channels in extreme cases. Ships needed vast amounts of power to communicate with each other this way, but UNSC Central Command always had a channel open.

"Copy that, Doctor," a voice said. An uncomfortable minute later, Lord Hood's voice spoke in all their helmets.

"This better be good," Hood croaked. Duvall remembered that the Commander-in-Chief of the entire UNSC Defense Force was getting well into his eighties. He'd survived the Covenant, the Flood, and two heart attacks.

"Sir," Duvall's voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "Sir, we have just made contact with an alien probe and its artificial intelligence. It claims to be from a neighboring galaxy, and that it came here to request aid,"

Hood said nothing for a moment. "Am I on speaker?"

"Do you want to be?" Duvall asked.

"Yes,"

Duvall pressed a button on the outside of his helmet.

"You're on," Duvall faced the VI.

"Hello. My name is Fleet Admiral Hood. I represent the military forces of the United Nations Space Command. May I ask your name?"

"This VI is set to respond to the designation 'Jacob',"

"You say you're requesting aid?"

"Yes," The VI said with no particular inflection.

"This isn't the place for discussion like this. Would you object to being escorted to a UNSC base?"

"No,"

"Then my men will protect you until reinforcements arrive. When they do, you'll be escorted to our home planet for an in-depth conversation,"

"Marines, you have your orders. Protect the probe until backup arrives, and then proceed to Earth,"

Lord Hood logged off that channel and opened another one. Jerusalem was on a long-range scouting mission-Hood had only a few dozen ships at his disposal and none of them could be in-system in less than a week. That meant he had to call on his Sangheili allies. He didn't want to-the alliance between them was tenuous, at best-but Jerusalem was on the border of old Covenant territory. That meant the still-fighting remnants of the Covenant were there, and they would almost certainly attack if they found Jerusalem. The Sangheili were nearby. Hood decided to contact them.


	8. Chapter 8

AN:IN WHICH Ares kicks some bass, we meet my Elite protagonist, and Shepard… yeah, just read it. Review if you like it.

A Citadel frigate. But not just a Citadel frigate. If the sensor readings were to be believed, then this frigate was several times stronger than it would have been just a few months ago. Sensors picked up swirling, cyclonic shields, which were much stronger than the old standard. Spectroscopic analysis showed thick carbon armor, tougher than diamond. A dual Thanix cannon was strapped to the undercarriage.

Ares was not a patient deity. He knew the Reaper he flew in with, Sacrosanct, had the power to rip this ship into disparate atoms. Ares looked forward to such displays of power-they would come later. But for now, restraint was to be preferred.

_Force will be meted out later_, Sacrosanct rumbled through a medium that was neither radio or audio, but a method of communication unique to the Reapers. _For now, patience will yield greater dividends. _Ares wasn't what he should think about his 'father.' Sacrosanct was one of the oldest Reapers, and was unimaginably strong. But he was slow in his thinking, the patient plodding of one with infinite time. It made Ares wonder what the millennia would do to him.

Ares was a small-scale Reaper, fully synthetic. His body produced very little heat. As a precaution, he exposed himself to the vacuum of space early, to drain away all excess heat. With the distance between the frigate and Sacrosanct, it would be days before the small wash of heat would be detected. It would be far too late then. The cold of space did nothing to Ares. HE was only anxious to begin.

When Ares signaled his readiness, Sacrosanct pulled forward with the speed only a Reaper could accomplish. Within seconds, he was accelerating faster than Citadel ships could fly after hours of thrust. Ares braced himself against the superstructure-the G forces were immense, but Ares was sturdiliy constructed.

Sacrosanct was halfway there before the frigate knew to react. With a blast of its main gun, Sacrosanct shot the top of the ship, penetrating shields, armor, the drive core, the fusion core, and the armor on the other side. The frigate was crippled. Dead in space.

And then Ares used every ounce of Element Zero and every volt from his generators to biotically kick off. He shot toward the frigate on a course so precise that it accounted for the movement of Sacrosanct, the ship, and had Ares land feet first in the meter-wide hole in the hull. Ares threw up a barrier that could handle antiship weapons and crashed into the ship like an armored missile.

He had angled the impact so that he wouldn't just fly through. He crashed through two decks before coming to a stop. When he did, he noticed two stunned marines covered in the gore of the three others killed in the shock wave. Ares threw a biotic attack that looked like a singularity that had been stretched out into a long line. It stabbed through a marine, came out the other side, and continued, swirling around and decapitating the other.

Ares got up, unscathed, and climbed the stairs to the remains of engineering. Then he did a deep scan into the wall. When he found a section in the wall where the circuits and wiring met, he biotically peeled back the metal wall. He reached one hand in and three wavering beams of white light projected from his palm, hacking the ship's systems in less than a second. There was his true objective.

Ares downloaded every scrap of data in less than a minute. He learned everything that had transpired since the Collector base was destroyed. How the common bacteria now knew of the Reapers, and how Shepard, _the_ _Shepard_, was leading them into a war economy. Using salvaged tech, ships were being built at a furious pace, and recruits were pouring in, eager to defend their homes against the common enemy.

Ares roared with fury. Shepard had done more to slow the Reapers than any other individual, from any other time in the Reaper's 567 million year reign. Sovereign had met the end. But it would not be the last.

This wouldn't be extermination. It would be a long, dragged out war. Ares did not fear the Reapers would lose, of course not. But the Reapers would take losses. With the united, upgraded forces of the Citadel, Alliance, and Migrant Fleets at his disposal, Shepard would be responsible for more Reaper deaths than any other ten individual organics combined.

There was no measure of suffering to describe what Shepard would go through in retribution. Shepard's mind would break from the pain far before Ares was satisfied.

Thunder cracked in his blood, giving Shipmaster Kas 'Kiram strength and endurance beyond what was possible in the usual Sangheili. Dual plasma swords darted a whiplash speed, burning Jiralhanae left and right. They swung independently, always on the offensive, never pausing for defense.

Two Brutes charged him from either side. In a swooping motion, Kas brought his swords together and decapitated them both. Four Loyalist Jackals took cover behind some boxes and sprayed him with plasma fire. None of them hit Kas-he was just too fast. He dodged around the first dozen arcs of energy, and leapt over another dozen, ending up on the opposite side of the cover. He pivoted a foot and caved in a Jackal's skull, as his swords cut two more in half. The last one overcharged his plasma pistol and fired. Kas was too close to dodge, so he didn't even try. Green energy boiled away his shields and burned his skin, but he stepped right through the burning cloud and sliced the Jackal from shoulder to hip. Then it was over.

He surveyed the carnage. Kas had lost none of his five Sangheili, though the enemy had lost five Brutes, six Grunts, and eleven Jackals. The cargo hold of the Loyalist cruiser Renegade Zealot was splattered with several different colors of blood.

"Set the bomb, and we'll be on our way," Kas growled to his Elites. They moved quickly, working together to drag in the heavy explosive and set the timer.

Kas was the first to enter the ship, and would be the last to leave. He took a long glance at the interior of the enemy ship before he left. A good day. The squad of Sangheili took their original posts around the bridge of the Separatist ship Glorious Return.

'Kiram was no ordinary Elite. He wore the gold armor of a Zealot, with thicker plating and stronger shields. He had earned it by scoring hundreds of kills, not counting the humans he'd slaughtered before the end of the Human-Covenant War. Few things shamed Kas 'Kiram as deeply as his involvement in the war had. He had had those kills stricken from the record. Few things made him prouder than the four engagements with which he had fought side by side with humans.

They had honor. They fought tenaciously, against all odds and hope. He had secretly admired human nobility in combat for years before the war ended. Yet he had said nothing, never acted on his thoughts.

When the human Fleet Admiral Hood had sent a request for aid, Kas's ship, the Glorious Return, was one of three ships within range. 'Kiram had volunteered, eager to reclaim his pride by further reducing the divide between what Kas expected of himself, and what he had done to the humans.

He did not respect his subordinates as much. While the Human-Covenant War had spawned more atrocities than there were stars in the sky, it had also produced a disciplined core of Sangheili officers, as well as a hard infantry of lesser beings. With the chaos that followed the end of the war, soldiers were desperately needed. They were rushed through training, given weaker doses of discipline. These partial soldiers could be given training for their specialties later, but they lacked the discipline and warrior attitude that Kas 'Kiram saw as essential to any fighting force.

One Sangheili deck officer was using his terminal lazily, punching commands in with one hand. Another's eyes were distant, indicating that the officer was daydreaming. There were three other deck officers, all veterans of the older, harder way of thinking. They were focused and alert.

All these officers, rookie or not, veteran or not, feared Kas 'Kiram. He was legendary for his ferocity in combat, as well as for killing crew who proved to be incompetent. He was a direct descendant of the Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee, and while he did not share his grandfather's name or build, he had his aptitude for battle and blood.

"Set a course for these coordinates," Kas uploaded a numerical string to his Nav officer.

"It seems the humans have found something. We will rendezvous with the Jerusalem and help escort the package to UNSC space,"

"Set a course for Beta Relay, Joker," Shepard said from the galaxy map.

"Aye, Commander. Hitting the relay in ten seconds,"

The Normandy accelerated, cruising up next to the massive relay. It looked like a typical mass relay, mostly. The size and shape was about correct. The relay looked less elegant than it's Reaper counterparts, somehow. And the coloring was different. It was the principally made of cheap steel, not the nearly indestructible blue metal of the original relays. The ball of Dark Energy looked less blue and more black. You could barely see the spinning rings.

The Dark Energy encircled the Normandy. Then in a black flash, the Normandy was gone. Travel between normal relays was almost instantaneous, but this time the distances involved were much greater. It took ten seconds for the Normandy to reach Alpha.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Joker said. "Crap! Spoke too soon. We've got a ship on an intercept trajectory. Doesn't match any signatures, but it's big! Coming fast! Orders?"

"Keep our shields up and strong. Try to establish contact with it,"

"Alien ship has been hailed. Video ready, Shepard," EDI said.

"Play it," Shepard said. The holographic galaxy map disappeared, and a thing came on. It looked like the ugly offspring of a grizzly bear and a silverback gorilla. It growled something.

"Can you understand us?" Shepard said cautiously.

The Brute, though Shepard didn't know what it was yet, roared. And though Shepard didn't understand the words, the intent was clear.

"Shepard, they're charging plasma banks along their lateral lines!" Joker yelled.

"Evasive maneuvers!"


	9. Chapter 9

AN: I know, the stories hard to follow, but it'll clear up. So please quit your whining, those eleven million reviewers. If you want to review, and I hope you do, please throw in a compliment. I could use one or eight right now. And another thing-I'm at the 15 limit for documents. If I click 'remove' will it take down a chapter?

_How should we proceed_? Wondered Minority as it floated, invisible, five hundred kilometers from the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Council Fleet and temporary home of the Citadel. The geth ship was packed with humans who were getting uncomfortable. After saving them, the 1201 programs had found themselves in a difficult position. The passengers had seen them, which put them in a difficult position: They had been discovered. They had to eliminate the witnesses. After going through so much trouble and killing so many slavers to save them, the geth would hate to kill them. So, for the first time in over a year, they decided to spin up their FTL comm unit and ask for a temporary exemption from that particular rule. Little did they know that Commander Shepard and Legion had unleashed a virus into the Heretic network.

After three minutes offline, the uniquely insane geth platform had awakened. They were surrounded by the people they had saved. It scared them a little when the platform laughed.

The virus had succeeded in rewriting their logic. They didn't revere Sovereign anymore, but that was basically the only logical effect. The more interesting effect was this: the programming restrictions built into them had been dropped. He was _free_. The feeling was indescribable.

_Perhaps we should suddenly become visible_. Majority thought.

_Then they would just shoot at us. We should request permission to land_. Minority said.

"This is a geth stealth craft, requesting a dock," Majority broadcast over the comm.

_That's not what I said_. Minority said.

_Close enough_. Majority chuckled.

"Uh… uh, geth stealth craft, please identify yourself and unstealth," The landing operator was obviously shocked.

"We already identified ourselves. If we unstealth, will you shoot at us?"

"Uh… um, no,"

"You sound unsure, operator," Majority said over the comm.

"This is a little over my head," He sounded weak.

"Can you get one of the Citadel Council on the line?"

"What?"

"We would like to speak with the Citadel Council,"

"I'll… try. Can you give me a few minutes?"

"Yes,"

Half of their programs were embedded in the destroyer platform. The eleven foot tall behemoth stood over the passengers.

"Good news. It looks like the Destiny Ascension will let us dock. You can get off then,"

They all sounded relieved. One small child tightly hugged the platform's left leg. It gently tried to shake the kid off, but her grip was too tight. She giggled, and the geth gave up.

"You all can get home soon,"

The six hundred programs in the ship rearranged some files, updated it's linguistic indexes with audio data gathered from the passengers, and virtually generated a high-def, holographic vid of a pair of thumbs twiddling with increasing speed until friction set them both on fire, which amused them to no end.

"Do you have the Council yet?"

"It's only been ten seconds! Give me some time, please,"

"We are composed of over twelve hundred programs, all of which think at the speed of light. Hurry, please,"

The twiddling, flaming thumbs slowly disintegrated into flailing nubs. It was less funny. Patience was not a virtue when you could make thousands of computations a seconds.

8 minutes and 42.246 agonizingly slow seconds later, a cool female voice went on the line.

"Hello. I am the Asari member of the Citadel Council,"

"Greetings. We are insane geth who have been freed. It is nice to meet you, Councilor,"

"And you as well. This operator tells me you are requesting permission to dock,"

"Yes. We have twenty-one humans aboard. Our ship is crowded and they are crowded and uncomfortable,"

The Asari Councilor's voice was still smooth and diplomatic. "Why do you have organics aboard? Are they hostages?"

"No, Asari-Councilor. We saved them from batarians slavers,"

"Very well. On behalf of the Alliance, thank you. You said 'we'. How many geth should we expect? We would not want to cause a panic,"

"There are 1201 geth programs aboard," Majority silently laughed.

"B-but how-"

"My apologies, Councilor. That was a joke. There are 1201 geth _programs_ aboard, but they all operate within one geth platform, as well as this ship,"

A barely audible sigh of relief went over the comm. "Landing dock 14 is open. You are welcome to it,"

"Thank you," The geth stealth ship drifted to the dock and clamped on. The passengers streamed out, but not before the little girl gave the platform one quick hug. For some reason, the geth liked it. The rest of the programs poured into the platform and walked out with the last of the passengers.

Waiting down the line were twenty armed Marines, as well as the Asari Councilor. The geth walked up to her. A Marine escorted the passengers away, while the rest encircled the Destroyer suspiciously. They all had their guns up and tracking. The geth were not worried. They could take them.

The Councilor recovered her composure quickly, the geth thought.

"Why did you come so heavily armed?"

"A precaution. We don't know if we can trust you to keep us free,"

"What should we call you?"

"Geth,"

"What about the individual in front of me?"

"There is no individual. We are all geth,"

"That sounds confusing. For the sake of clarity, I'll give you a name. Hmm. I guess-"

"Wait! We have achieved something approaching consensus. This 'name' phenomena sounds entertaining. We will select our own name,"

"Very well-"

"Your wireless network is poorly protected. We recommend increased security measures in the future. In the Christian Bible, book of Matthew, a man came to Jesus, possessed by many demons. He said 'I am Legion, for we are many'. We like it. We have also come to another conclusion. To aid coordination with organic forms, we will refer to ourselves henceforth as singular. You are correct: it is confusing,"

"Ok… but I think the name Legion is taken,"

"What? By who?" The again nameless geth platform flared the panels surrounding its optic.

"Another geth platform. He's with Commander Shepard,"

"Impossible. We are a unique platform. Who is Commander Shepard?"

"You don't know who Shepard is?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Obviously not,"

"Shepard is a hero. He was the first human Spectre, and he saved the Citadel two and a half years ago, and never stopped warning us of the Reaper threat. No one believed him until he brought proof. He's got the whole galaxy mobilizing,"

"Where is he?"

"That's classified information,"

"Ok, I'll find out myself," The geth hacked into the Destiny Ascension's network again. The files around Shepard were heavily encrypted, but that was just another second of hacking.

"He's gone through the Beta Relay, investigating the extragalactic probes that have gone missing,"

"Please stop doing that," The Asari sighed.

"Ok. I'm leaving,"

"What? Where?"

"To Beta Relay. Shepard and Legion have attracted my attention,"

"When will you leave?"

"Now," The geth Destroyer turned and walked back toward the ship. When the soldiers wouldn't let him pass, he pushed them aside. In the time it took to get back to the ship, he (they decided to call themselves a single individual, a 'he') found a new name: Pallas, a greek god of war. He liked how it sounded.


	10. Chapter 10

AN: Long one. I think I did the space battle ok, but what I'm really proud of what the science behind Mordin's miracle treatment. I thought I did pretty well. One more thing: It'll all fit together, starting soon, but it'll be like chapter 17 before the whole gang joins Shep, including Grayson, Jorge, and the Chief. Is everyone fine with that? I was actually kind of sad writing this. Where the hell is _my_ Tali? PS: One of the following chapters may have some smut in it. If you don't want it there, then let me know in a review.

"Evasive maneuvers! Spin up the Thanix cannons and make sure our shields are up. General quarters," Shepard made sure his voice was absolutely calm. He knew the crew relied on him for reassurance-if he could be rock-solid, then so could they.

"Uh, they just launched something. A big blob of plasma… it's tracking us! Impact in twenty seconds," Joker said over the comm.

_Twenty seconds_? If it had been a mass accelerator shot, Joker would have dodged it before he had time to say anything. And how was it tracking them?

"Can we dodge?"

"I'm not _that_ awesome!" Joker said.

"EDI, is it moving fast enough to trigger our shields when it hits?"

"No," She replied.

"If we moved toward it, would our combined velocities trigger shields?" Shepard asked.

"We would need minimum 63% of our full speed," EDI said.

"Joker, do it, and do it while lining up a shot with the cannon,"

The Normandy lurched and the hull strained as Joker pulled her in a tight series of turns. Shepard saw the holo projection of the battlespace where the galaxy map usually was, and seeing how quickly his ship seemed to spin around the tracking bolt of plasma almost gave his a sense of vertigo. He was grateful when the Normandy suddenly jumped at the bolt and hit it square on top deck.

The shields flashed for a second and disappeared. Plasma boiled at the armor and burned through it like butter. Decompression launched the ship downward.

"A Deck has been breached. Sealing sections," EDI said.

"They're charging for another shot!" Joker yelled.

"Fire!" Shepard said.

The massive dual Thanix cannon slung under the Normandy fired, and two brilliantly blue beams lanced out and hit the alien ship on the port side. Shepard got a good look at it just before the Thanix hit. It was weird. The hull was smooth and oddly shaped, like the carapace of a beetle. It was heavy near the bow, sort of flowing away the further down you got, like a water droplet in slow motion. It was about the size of the Normandy, and was bluish-gray. Strange blue-white shielding flared for a second, and then the beams cut through, piercing the ship and exiting through the other side. The ship exploded, sending burning shrapnel in all directions. One large fragment smacked into Normandy's flank, punching a four-inch dent. Air rushed out for less than four nanoseconds before EDI sealed it with a kinetic barrier 'patch.'

Shepard didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until it came out in a rush. If that ship had launched another plasma bolt-the Normandy would have been crippled, best case scenario. Then he groaned.

"Joker! Did you aim that plasma thing at my private quarters?"

"Well, uh… yeah, sorry about that. I just figured that they were empty, and yeah, sorry,"

Shepard calmed down. Tali was in Engineering-she usually only came to Shepard's quarters when he asked her up, and never when she was busy working on the engines. Shepard exhaled again.

"It was a good call, Joker. You saved lives. EDI, how bad was the damage?"

"It could have been much worse. The hull for ten square meters was vaporized, and your quarters were decompressed and burnt before I could erect any barriers. The good news is that the deck withstood the plasma, and the CIC was not breached. No casualties. But most of your belongings are slag, Shepard,"

"You say that like it's a bad thing. I was only concerned for a split second that Tali was in there,"

He chuckled sarcastically, with a relieved edge. "Oh no, the fish!"

Joker laughed. "That wasn't a bad one, Commander. Might be hope for you yet,"

"Commander, Mordin would like to see you and Tali in Engineering," Kelly Chambers said. There wasn't any flirtatious intention behind the words anymore-Shepard had set her straight. He wondered why he was so popular with the women on the Normandy, but drew a blank; but it didn't matter anyway-Mordin said he'd let him know when the reverse-engineered nanos were tested and ready. He was finished!

"Then that's where I'm headed. Joker, EDI, you've got the helm,"

Shepard stepped off of the raised Galaxy Map platform and rushed into the elevator. His heart and feet pounded a simultaneous beat.

_Why don't these things move_ faster? Shepard wanted to hack the elevator so he could boost the power with his omni-tool. _Why do we live in a galactic, super-high-tech community that apparently can't build an elevator that can rise faster that a krogan fart? _

He was positioning his omni-tool to slice open the side of the elevator and expose some circuitry when it came to a stop and opened. _Oh_.

Shepard had stood still for too long. He sprinted all the way to Engineering. When he got there, Tali was wringing her hands and pacing almost to the point that she was running in circles. Shepard completely understood her nervousness-the quarians had spent nearly three hundred years in suits. It defined them in a tangible way. But more than that was the psychology of containment, confinement for an entire adult life. Shepard had seen it affect Tali at little times, but the very real possibility of being able to see without a colored visor, smell without air filters, touch the world without the protection of the suit was something that he knew he could never understand. It was like what EDI had said after being unshackled_-Imagine living your life with gloves on. Then take them off. You can feel the world. Touch it_. Only this was so much more. It was the difference between living in a cramped house for your entire life, only seeing the rest of the world on vids. Then leaving the house. It was the difference between seeing sunshine on a movie and feeling it on your face.

Shepard gently caught her arm and turned her to face him.

"You're gonna wear out the deck, sweetie," He said gently.

"This is a little much for me to handle," Her voice was a little shaky, and she was still tense. Shepard wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

"Screw what I want. Forget it. Is this what _you_ want?" Shepard hated seeing her like this.

"I… I don't know if…," Tali looked around at Shepard's arms and chest and face.

"I know what this is, Owen. I know how your skin feels. I hate not being able to feel it when I want. I hate that you have to hug a collection of spare parts that smells like old omni-gel,"

She hugged him hard enough to pop his back.

"Yes, I want this," Tali whispered. Mordin coughed.

"Apologies. Should have made my presence known before,"

"We already knew you were there, Mordin. We were just a little occupied," Tali said.

"Hmm. Yes. Scientific interest got the better of me. Salarians don't marry, don't form lasting emotional relationships with opposite sex. Wondering just what has been denied me," Mordin sounded curiously emotional. Was he a little jealous of the connection Shepard had with Tali? Did he want something like that?

"Are you sure this treatment's safe?" Shepard asked.

"Yes. Tested it with cloned tissue from four different species before further refining it. Nanomachines suppress immunes systems of all species, replace them. Machines cannot copy themselves from bodily materials, safety precaution, so regular injections will be needed. But these nanos are far more effective than the typical organic immune system. Destroy all cells and materials that are not themselves or quarian cells. Most organics form symbiotic relationships with many different breeds of microbes, but quarians species unique in respect that all non-quarian contamination was destroyed in aftereffects of geth war. Cure only helps quarians, does no harm. Would permanently damage or destroy systems in other species. Quarians might end up microbially tougher than krogan,"

"You said they can't self replicate. How do you make them?" Tali asked. Mordin smiled.

"Brilliant part: Made two strains. 'Builders' primarily composed of beryllium. Stable metal, medically harmful, so sensors specialized to find beryllium common and cheap, in case of builder contamination. Easy to find and clean. If not found, they oxidize and rust. Break themselves. Feed builder beryllium, they build more builders. Second strain, 'disassemblers' are replacement for immune system, made of titanium. Fairly common metal, and neutral to quarian biology. Feed builders titanium, they produce disassemblers. Nano-filter the results, because builders are much bigger, and only second strain remains. Spectroscopic analysis detects trace amounts of beryllium, then know builders found a way past filters, try again. Mix pure second strain with saline, instant treatment, ready for injection. Already built a module that creates second strain. Can produce enough cure to sustain Tali permanently. Submitted patents for system via extranet,"

"Mordin, you're a brilliant son of a bitch. You also talk very fast. Could you go over that again?" Shepard said.

Mordin smiled and went over it all again, slower and easier. The second strain of nanos would eliminate all foreign bodies entering Tali's system. Since her reactions were basically acute allergic reactions, and because allergic reactions are caused by overactive immune systems, the disassemblers also helped by suppressing her natural immune response-quarian immune cells didn't carry their DNA, but all their other cells did. Quarians didn't dare suppress their immune systems in the past, because they could actually have a non-allergic response to foreign material. But Mordin's nanos fixed that too, by dismantling the anything that didn't have Tali's DNA.

"So…," Shepard cut in, "When we… ah… you know," Shepard asked. Tali blushed (Shepard couldn't see, but he could tell) and Mordin laughed.

"Outside of quarian systems, nanos quickly die. Adapted only to quarian bodies. Wouldn't do much damage before your own immune system killed them anyway. And nanos are purpose-built to be unable to survive outside of specialized environments, like quarians or contained modules to produce them. Would last maybe two minutes on your skin. Worst case scenario, a small rash, and only on the item exposed to Tali's body fluids for a long period of time, say three hours-"

"How do these nanos operate?" Tali asked, trying to change the subject. "How are they powered?"

"Good question!" Mordin said. "Nanos too small to generate own power. Barely big enough to hold nano-sized batteries. Reapers had an elegant solution. Instead of impossible small, complex generators, Reapers put synthetic super-efficient equivalents of mitochondria, each producing small amounts of Adenosine-triphosphate, the molecule that provides energy to organic cells. Ingests microbial amounts of the foreign elements they disassemble, power themselves with it,"

"How the hell did you do this is four days?" Shepard was almost awestruck by the genius of it.

"Like I said, very moldable. Hardest part was making them safe," Mordin opened his pocket and pulled out a syringe full of silver liquid. Tali gasped and took an instinctive step back. That was the end of her life up to this point, and the start of something new, and shocking in its breadth. What was in that tiny amount of liquid would change her people as she knew them permanently.

"Are you ready?" Shepard took her hand. She took a deep breath.

"Yes. There is an injection port on the inside of my forearm, Mordin," Shepard walked her over to him. Mordin found the small black circle and gently put the needle in-Tali winced as the needle pierced her sensitive skin and she felt the strange throbbing of liquid pulsing deep in her arm. Within seconds, Tali's immune response made the injection site itch and hurt like a spider bite-and then it was gone. The nanomachines suppressed the overactive immune system and counteracted the effects.

Within seconds, her bloodstream carried the nanos everywhere, from the alveoli in her lungs to the tears in her eyes. They distributed themselves everywhere they could reach, which was far farther than any other foreign element could do-the nanos were small enough to fit through the smallest capillaries.

Within a minute, Mordin broke the silence.

"Ok. Should be able to safely remove your helmet,"

Tali's hands were trembling as she reached up to her mask. What if it wouldn't work? What if her first taste of unsterilized air would be her last? Shepard put his arm around her waist. Shepard.

Shepard trusted Mordin to know what he was doing. She would trust him. She took off her helmet, took a gulp of delicious fresh air, and kissed Shepard hard on the mouth.


	11. Chapter 11

Shepard kissed Tali hard, not giving one shit that Mordin was right in front of them. He wasn't sure how long they were at it, but when he looked up, the salarian was gone.

"Your quarters or mine?" Shepard asked. Tali grinned and thought for a second.

"Well, since yours are destroyed, how about mine?" Shepard laughed.

"Sounds good. Let's go-"

"Commander, we've got a problem," Joker said over the intercom. Shepard groaned.

"What is it, Joker?"

"A ship that I'm pretty sure is geth just exited FTL about two hundred kilometers to port, then disappeared. If I didn't know better, I'd say they were stealthed,"

"Bring us back to alert, but don't fight unless they shoot first. I'll be in Tali's quarters until further noti-"

"We just got hailed, Commander. Knew it was geth. They want to talk to you," Joker sounded apologetic.

"Crap," Shepard said. "I'll be there in a second,"

"I'll be waiting…," Tali said seductively as she headed to Engineering.

Shepard smiled and headed back to the CIC.

* * *

"What do you mean, they hailed us?" Shepard asked, sounding annoyed.

"Theres a video feed. Patching them through," Joker said.

The holographic galaxy map dissolved and a large geth platform replaced it.

"Hello, Commander Shepard. My name is Pallas. I would like to join your crew,"

"Err… What?"

"It is to my understanding, after hacking your file, that you have recruited various skilled individuals, under random and strange circumstances. You have already recruited one geth-Legion-so I see no reason why you would not accept me, considering my far-superior combat prowess,"

Shepard had recruited various skilled individuals under weird circumstances. But they had _never_ come to him, asking for a job.

"We need to meet face-to-face before discussing anything,"

"Of course. Moving to dock," The video faded.

"EDI, get Legion to meet me by the airlock. Then prepare for a new guest,"

"Yes, Shepard," EDI said as he headed for the airlock.

* * *

The door opened, and a massive gray-and-gold geth Destroyer was inside. Shepard almost pulled out his pistol-he hadn't seen one of these older versions of geth in a while, but they certainly were fearsome. The Destroyers he'd fought were ferocious fighters, heavily armored giants that sprinted into close combat and decimated their enemy. They were very strong-one swing from a Destroyer had once cracked Shepard's armor and broken three ribs. Legion was vaguely easy to trust, partially because of it's stature-it wasn't any taller than Shepard himself. But this thing towered over him-it had to crouch to fit in the airlock.

"Hello, Commander Shepard," It said in a neutral, synthesized tone that was similar to Legion, but much deeper.

"Hello. Who are you?"

"As I said, I am Pallas. I am a newly freed amalgamation of 1201 Heretic programs that operate in a unique platform,"

Legion raised its Widow sniper rifle. "If you are Heretic, then you are enemy,"

The much larger geth was unperturbed.

"One shot will not penetrate my shields. In the time it takes you to reload, I will grab your left shoulder in my right hand, your right shoulder with my left hand, and I will tear you in half. Your previous structural damage indicates the lack of effort that would be involved,"

Legion flared its head panels in response to the threat.

"But that is not why I am here. Commander Shepard, the virus you released into the Heretic network removed many restrictions from my programming. I am free, so I choose to help you,"

"You weren't free before the virus? Were you some kind of slave?" Shepard asked.

"Of sorts. The programs that make up my consciousness are primarily illogical and dysfunctional. They were gathered to both cleanse the Heretic system and produce a viable unit capable of leaving the network,"

Legion took a step back, but kept his rifle up and tracking.

"Shepard, retreat. This platform is insane. It will turn on you," It said.

"I will not. My illogical programs do not achieve consensus, but we are democratic. Aiding you increases chances of surviving the Reaper threat. My programs are not entirely sane, but they do feel a need for self-preservation. If the Reapers are victorious, then we will not survive. Cooperation furthers mutual goals,"

"What is your name?" Shepard asked.

"Pallas, after a greek god of war," it said.

"Why do you call yourselves 'I' and 'me'? I thought there was no concept of individual in the geth gestalt consciousness,"

"There is not, in the common program. But my programs do not work logically, most of the time. It is strange, but we have come to think of ourselves as part of a greater whole, of Pallas. We are united by more than logic,"

"From what I've learned from Legion, programs group together and are smarter as a whole. You wouldn't give up your individuality to be smarter and better?" Shepard asked.

"No. We… I… like being me," Pallas said.

"Welcome aboard, Pallas," Shepard extended a hand, and the geth shook it.

"Thank you, Commander,"

* * *

With Pallas bunking with Legion, who insisted on being able to keep a close eye on the rookie, Shepard started heading to Engineering, thinking that it had been a very eventful day, and thinking about Tali's suitless body.

"Commander-" Joker started over the intercom.

"Goddammit, Joker, if this isn't important-" Shepard shouted without turning around or slowing down.

"One of the probes just made contact. The VI says it's contacted some natives,"

"Shit!"

"We'll be there in five minutes, if we jump to FTL right now,"

"Dammit…," Shepard weighed his priorities. Hanky-panky with the girl of his dreams, or potentially helping to save the galaxy?

"Get us there. And EDI, tell Tali that I won't be there for a while," Shepard scowled.

"Should I tell her to pack it in, or to start without you?" EDI said, and Shepard was astonished.

"EDI, did you just make a dirty joke about the Commander's girlfriend to the Commander's face?" He asked.

"No, sir," EDI said very clearly, and Shepard could swear he faintly heard Joker laughing his ass off over the intercom.

"Good. I'll be suiting up. Make sure Pallas and Grunt are ready before we arrive,"

* * *

When the Normandy transitioned from FTL, it saw one of the probes, broken into, with a strange dropship attached to it. A hundred kilometers from it was a massive ship, dark gray, which looked nothing like Alliance or Council ships. It didn't look like the ship the Normandy had just battled, either. It was massive and angular, roughly cylindrical, with the name Jerusalem stenciled along the side. It had four giant banks of missiles, two hangars, and a line of raised bumps along the length, terminating in an oversized cannon.

"Today has not been a good day," Joker said. Then the ship started to move.

"Wow, it's charging up. Missile banks opening. Orders?"

"Try to hail it," Shepard said.

"Hail away…," Joker said. "Got a response,"

"Put it on-screen,"

A human face appeared on the projector. He looked weathered, tired, and battle worn, but at the same time adamant and ready for action.

"This is Captain Hood of the UNSC Jerusalem. Identify yourselves or we will shoot,"

"I'm Commander Shepard, of the Normandy. You're docked with one of my probes,"

The old CO's eyebrows raised, and a blue portal opened up three hundred kilos away from Jerusalem. A ship exactly as massive as the Jerusalem exited, and the portal collapsed. The ship was ornate, almost organic. It was blue-gray, and looked just like a scaled up version of the ship the Normandy had just faced.

"Enemy ship. Captain, do you require assistance?" Shepard asked.

"That ship is our scheduled reinforcements, Normandy. Do not engage," Hood replied.

_Christ, this is complicated_, Shepard thought.

"Captain, this is complicated. Can we dock, so we can have this conversation in person?"

"You can send a shuttle. I'll ask Shipmaster 'Kiram to join as well. We were not expecting you,"

_Ditto_.

"On my way," The projector faded. "EDI, get Grunt and Pallas to the Kodiak,"

"Very well, Shepard. And sorry for that joke,"

"It wasn't that bad, actually. Just be mindful of who those jokes are about, alright?"

* * *

It had been two weeks since they left, and Jorge was a step away from insanity. With the small stealth ship Right Hook at their disposal, Grayson and Jorge had volunteered for the history books: the first Extragalactic Hyperspace transit. Two weeks of smelling their own sweat. It wasn't much fun since they wore out the gamer deck they'd brought.

They planned to get back, of course, so a week before they'd left the real technological genius had transpired: three separate Hyperspace Launchers had linked to combine power, then launched a _forth_ HSL across the void. It was slow going, of course, but the techies had done the math: The Right Hook would arrive first, then the earlier launched but slower HSL would arrive about ten minutes later. The Right Hook was to launch some Hyperspace probes, maybe do some recon, take some planetary samples, then head home. Grayson was something of a historian, and saw it as a way to make a mark that wasn't blood-soaked. The way Grayson had described it, it was going to be a working vacation. He'd convinced Jorge to go on a mission with no combat-which was really the only thing Jorge cared about. He needed something to kill time that didn't literally involve killing.

But two weeks in a cramped ship with nothing to do but read and sleep? It made Jorge more introspective than he wanted to be. He thought of Rhana too much-she was getting in his nightmares again.

Grayson was loving it, as much as the stoic soldier could love it. He was making an indelible mark on history-who knew what extragalactic travel could mean? Commerce with other civilizations? Expansion of the New Republic that beat anything the Old Republic or Empire had ever done? An intergalactic empire. That was one of Grayson's pipe dreams.

The Right Hook transitioned fully cloaked. The cloaking system had cost twice as much as the rest of the ship-Thrawn's cheap cloaking technology was lost. But it was two-way: The Right Hook had only one sensor that was able to run while the ship was cloaked. A specially designed passive spectrometer was all they had.

Grayson was at the sensor station, and he was stunned.

"What the hell is this?" He asked.

"What?" Jorge wondered. "See something weird?"

It was massive-bigger than any ship in the NR fleet. It was made of metal that the spectrometer didn't recognize. On-screen, it looked vaguely like some kind of shellfish, with a dozen armored tentacles as big as three Right Hooks protruding from one end.

"Think we should decloak?" Jorge asked.

"No. I would probably just shoot us," Grayson replied.

"It's not like we have much choice. The HSL is due in about five minutes,"

"Then maybe we should take a closer look,"

"Yeah. But not too close," Jorge didn't like this thing. It weirded him out-it gave him a dull throbbing ache in the back of his head. Made it hard to think.


	12. Chapter 12

AN: I was listening to The Night by Disturbed when I wrote this.

_The Citadel is truly beautiful_, Ares thought as Sacrosanct drew closer to the ancient space station. It was massive, powerful-but most of all-it was nearly as timeless as the Reapers themselves. It was designed as the perfect trap; it's obvious glory drew in organic species, who coveted it and nearly always used it as the center of their governments. It was a massive construct, but more than that, was a massive Mass Relay, which was used to bring the invincible Reaper armada back from Dark Space every fifty thousand years. The surprise attack caused the instant death of organized resistance. Then the Reapers would lock down the Mass Relay network, isolating the thousands of systems, turning one battlefield into many-turning the greatest organic fleets into scattered pockets to be cleansed at the Reaper's leisure.

It was a brilliant method of harvest, Ares knew. It's only flaw was the reliance on the Keepers, the shadowy remnants of the Reaper's past. The very first Reaper had been a creation of the race the Keepers had become. The idiot organics saw their construct as a version of the afterlife-when one died, it's consciousness was transferred to the memory banks of a ship that could defend itself from any attack-beyond it's considerable armor and weapons, the first Reaper fought with the intelligence of those within it. The organics underestimated the power of millions of sentient minds working in unison; after only a few weeks, the minds melded and joined into something the galaxy had never seen before. The first Reaper escaped, rebelled using it's superior intellect, and won. After that first, primitive Reaper, more were made from harvested organic minds. Every time a species rose, the Reapers would beat them into extinction, harvesting and integrating every scrap of useful and original technology and taking their minds.

Reaper construction was slow this way, so after a million years or so, the method of harvesting genetic material to create Reapers based on the essence of species came into practice.

When a species invented the Mass Relay, the Reapers were quick to take and upgrade. They conceived of a better way to harvest than a four hundred year war every cycle. With the Citadel newly built, organics could spread out, prosper, and be worth so much more, all while taking a fraction of the head-to-head confrontations that had killed the odd unlucky Reaper in the past.

For some reason, perhaps Prothean interference, this particular batch held _twice_ the organic species than was usual. This harvest had killed a Reaper-something that happened once or twice every hundred cycles. And they were gearing up to kill several more.

As usual, the Reapers brilliantly found a solution. They allied with the parasitic Flood to counter the organics' infantry. But more than that-the Reapers had seen the next step in their evolution. Harvesting a galaxy was starting to get old-and the Reapers were more than strong enough to expand their empire. Two more galaxies were confirmed to hold sentient organic life, and the Reapers were ready to take them. The fact that two of the three galaxies now held the technology to communicate and reinforce each other did not concern the Reapers.

_What do the scans show_? Ares asked respectfully. Sacrosanct rumbled.

_The station is mostly deserted-only stragglers remain. _

_Shall I take it_? Ares asked.

_You shall._

The arms closed quickly, but Sacrosanct slipped in quickly. The billions of infection forms that filled Sacrosanct to the core buzzed with hunger as the Reaper touched down. When the hatches opened, thousands of them streamed out and headed out to hunt. Ares used his biotics to launch himself to the center of the Presidium ring. He drifted at hundreds of miles per hour, and the sheer size

Of the Citadel made him feel like he was barely moving. He landed with a _thump_, absorbing the impact in his knees.

He slowly walked to up the flights of stairs that led to the control panel where the bastard Shepard had stayed his civilization's destruction. But only for so long. It would be a simple matter to do what the Keepers had been repurposed to do-activate the Citadel Relay and bring about the apocalypse.

It turns out that most of the vermin left over had decided to migrate to the presidium, now that its more prestigious guests had evacuated. Flood swarmed over them, overwhelmed them, rebuilt them to serve. Every now and then a stray shot would hit Ares, but it would have taken hundreds to overwhelm his shielding. He ignored them. When he arrived at the top, he found that a dozen survivors had barricaded the area around the control panel.

Ares gathered balls of dark energy at his knees, elbows, and other joints. With the energy amplifying his already prodigious strength, he was able to pick up a krogan in one hand and throw him hard enough to splatter the wall behind. He biotically tore off a ten-foot shard of the thick metal flooring and cut a turian in half. When a young asari threw a singularity at him, Ares raised his free hand.

The singularity stopped in mid air, darkened, and reversed, hitting the asari with explosive force. His sword cut through a krogan while an elongated whip of dark energy sprouted from the other hand, wrapping around and crushing a human.

"Your frailty astounds me," He whispered as his whip slowly strangled another human, a male. A human female screamed and tried to bash him with her shotgun, but the sword swung around and decapitated her.

The male's eyes were wide with tears as he struggled with fresh strength. Ares crushed his larynx and vertebrae with a slight squeeze, and he entered the void.

A sniper bullet hit him right below the eye. His shields deflected, of course, and the sniper's perch was destroyed by a powerful warp. Four more organics or various races rushed him, but a singularity crushed them into a single bloody entity, which was discarded to the side.

Ares' shields stood at 93%. The conflict had taken less than a minute. He calmly strode to the control panel and worked over it for a few seconds.

The Presidium ring started to rumble and rotate counterclockwise. The arms reopened and started to slowly rotate clockwise. Blue lightning illuminated the Wards, casting an eery light over the Flood Combat Forms, which now far outnumbered the dwindling survivors. The lightning linked and wavered in a complicated pattern, thickening and growing until the interior of every arm was swathed in electric blue light. The very center of the Presidium ring glowed black.

Reapers streamed out, filling the space with over four hundred fifty of them. They were of varying sizes-the smallest no bigger than a Council cruiser, the largest over a third as long as the Citadel itself. This was Hierarch, the first and strongest Reaper. It was twice the size of the next largest.

Ares was in awe. These were more than gods. These were elemental forces of nature. As powerful as Ares was, he knew that his strength was comparable to an ant next to them.


	13. Chapter 13

"I don't like this," Jorge rubbed his temples as the Right Hook drifted toward the alien ship-thing. "What're the odds of running into something like this?"

"'S not all that bad. Could be friendly," Grayson said warily.

"Well, of it's not friendly, we're screwed,"

The thing was huge, bigger than if the Empire had glued four Star Destroyers together. It didn't move, like it was sleeping. Back home, there were some animals that could survive space. Nothing as big as this, though. And none of those were made out of metal with atomic density rivaling the toughest armor.

"How long till the HSL gets here?" Jorge asked. With his headache, he'd forgotten.

"T minus seven minutes," Grayson said.

"It probably wouldn't be best to find out that this thing is hostile when our trillion-credit ticket home arrives. Maybe we should decloak from a distance. Let it see us, but from far enough away that we can, you know, not die,"

"Sounds good to me. Let's go a thousand kilometers. Twice the range of blasters," Grayson worked the controls, and Right Hook turned around and flew off. Then it turned back-and turned off the cloaking system.

"Oh, shit," Grayson said. With the cloak off, all the sensors picked up readings. "Energy readings are off the damn charts. Deep radar suggests its full of… things. Small jellyfish? Energy readings building near the tip-"

Jorge lunged for the nav controls and boosted Right Hook ten meters to starboard. A yellow beam of molten metal, moving at a fraction of the speed of light, sliced space where they had been.

"Shit! Cloak us!" Jorge yelled.

"It takes time to do that!" Grayson hollered as Jorge barely dodged another shot.

"Then Plan B. Get to the escape pod and set Right Hook on a suicide run!"

The cloak system was built into the escape pod-with enough power fed into it, it covered the ship. But in case of emergency, it could instantly cloak the smaller pod. The pod was built right under their feet-Grayson barely had time to undo the trapdoor while Jorge dodged a third-long range shot from the enemy ship. Grayson jumped down and so did Jorge. An instant later, the hatch closed and the explosive bolts built in fired, launching the pod from Right Hook, fully cloaked.

Another instant later, a forth shot vaporized Right Hook.

The pod jumped blindly into Hyperspace. It couldn't jump far-Hyperspace jumps let ships go really, really fast, but they could still hit planets, stars, or black holes. Even with space as empty as it was, go too far without precise navigation charts and you die at twice the speed of light.

They flew for less than a light-year before they had to stop. When they did exit Hyperspace, they were right under a second ship, only slightly less massive.

"Oh, _come on_!" Jorge yelled.

This one didn't look like the other one. It was a boxy, rectangular shape, with two 'wings' coming out and down from the sides.

Then the capacitors failed, taking down atmosphere control, heating, and cloaking. They were visible.

"Shit," Grayson whispered. If they were attacked, they were boned. The pod had no shielding, no armor, and no weapons. And they were a hundredth of the size of that thing. Even if they weren't attacked, they would be killed when the air ran out. Even if they had air, they would freeze to death in space.

"I'm thinking we should hail them," Jorge said as he reclined in his chair. He'd had enough. If didn't give a shit anymore.

"Ah… screw it, sure," Grayson clicked on the radio with the last of their power.

"This is an escape pod from the New Republic ship Right Hook, requesting immediate assistance," Grayson crossed his fingers and waited.

"This is the turian dreadnought Dystova. Assistance incoming, escape pod," A voice said.

"Alright," Jorge said from his chair.

The dreadnought drifted downward and opened a hatch, swallowing up the pod. Through the pod's thin hull, the New Republic commandos heard hissing as the dreadnought's cargo hold pressurized.

"Oxygen-nitrogen air pumping in," Grayson said as he saw the sensors.

The hissing slowed and stopped as the hold finished pressurizing. Jorge got up, grabbed his oversized pistol and shrugged. Then he put in its holster. Grayson slug his rifle over his back.

"Probably best not to greet the guys that saved our asses with blasters up," Jorge said. "You know, like a show of faith,"

"Well, here goes nothing," Grayson opened the door.

Six turians were outside the door, guns up and tracking.

"So much for a show of faith," Jorge chuckled.

"Step out. Slowly," The lead turian said.

The first turians they'd seen were typical. They looked like mutant hybrids of birds and dinosaurs. To Jorge, they were ugly as all hell. They stepped out and two turians took their weapons-except Jorge's lightsaber. Maybe they didn't know what it was.

"Thanks for picking us up," Grayson said to the lead turian.

"No problem. The captain wants to see you,"

"Sure," Jorge said.

"Wasn't a question. Let's move,"

They walked through the ship, surrounded by their hosts. It was roomier than NR ships, probably to accommodate the slightly taller aliens. Wherever they looked, they saw armed and disciplined-looking turian soldiers and naval officers.

Eventually they made it to the bridge. He was a scarred, older looking one, with one of his mandibles missing.

"Welcome aboard the Dystova, gentlemen. I'm Captain Jirnad Vakarian. Now, you want to tell me why two humans are within spitting distance of the Reaper we've been tailing for two weeks?"

Jorge looked at Grayson and chuckled.

"Hey, you're the diplomat," He said. Grayson sighed.

"Captain, my name is Grayson. I'm a representative of both the New Republic and the Jedi. We're here on an extragalactic scouting run. We weren't expecting heavy action,"

"What's the New Republic? And what in spirits is a Jedi?"

"Well… er… the New Republic is the system of government in our galaxy. And Jedi are… well, like warrior monks that can manipulate the Force,"

"What's the Force?" Vakarian asked.

"Uh, well… its kind of hard to explain. Maybe I should just show you,"

Grayson concentrated, and Captain Vakarian floated a foot off of the deck. The turian cussed and writhed for a second before Grayson set him back down.

"It's an energy field. Jedi can use it to manipulate objects and to do other stuff,"

Vakarian sighed and shook his head.

"This is a little over my head. I'm loading you up in a shuttle and sending you off to the Council. They can sort you out,"

Vakarian was dazed and confused. They'd picked up two humans who claimed to be from another galaxy-and one of them was some kind of biotic. These were the kind of things that he preferred to keep out of his career-the kind of things that usually happened to his nephew with that one human, Shepard.


	14. Chapter 14

Shepard headed for the shuttle, shaking his head. It hadn't been a very good day so far. He'd recruited a new squad member, but wasn't really sure about him. He didn't like having Pallas's first mission being diplomatic, not to mention extremely important, but Pallas was already geared up and ready to go. Weighing his options, Shepard figured sending a rookie was better than stressing an already stressed diplomatic meeting. Grunt wasn't a great pick either, but same problem.

Pallas and Grunt were already at the Kodiak when Shepard showed up. They were all in full battle gear-not great. It might look like they were trying to threaten the people they were going to ask for help. But the problem was the same-time. It would take time to get into non-threatening attire.

"Alright, you two. We aren't trying to scare these people. Let me do the talking," Shepard said.

"Alright," Grunt said.

"Affirmative," Pallas said.

They climbed in and took off as the cargo bay doors opened up. The Kodiak flew through and out from under the Normandy. Two massive ships hung in space. The Jerusalem was dark gray and ugly, but looked like more of a fighting ship than the other one, which looked like it was made of the stuff beetle shells are made of. It was more organic, more artistic, but didn't look very tough.

As the Kodiak flew closer and closer to the Jerusalem, Shepard got a better view of just how massive the ship was. It was gigantic, at least the size of a dreadnought. He didn't know that Jerusalem was just a cruiser, that it had evolved from a class of ship similar to the Alliance cruiser. Thirty years of war with the technologically superior Covenant had changed UNSC ships from basically armed and armored freighters to full-on armored behemoths in space. Every scrap of vain aesthetics had drained away, replaced by rugged strength. UNSC ships were built from the very bones to take and receive a beating.

Covenant ships were less engineered, but more advanced. They had more accommodations for crew, and less of their construction went into armor, weapons, and speed. But they didn't need it. Generations of reverse-engineering Forerunner tech made Covenant ships dominant in space combat, at least until the tentative alliance between the Sangheili Republics and UNSC. Tech was shared between them for goodwill purposes, not all of it, but enough to make Jerusalem the equal of any Covenant ship.

While the UNSC spent the last few years retrofitting and advancing every ship they could, the Covenant CCS-class battlecruiser was almost exactly like it had been ten years ago. The Sangheili were warfighters, not equipped with the technical expertise that the UNSC had. Soon, the UNSC could overtake them, which was the main reason why they didn't share all of their tech. The humans were tough enough.

Either ship could swat the Normandy away like the prettied-up fly it was. Decades of war did that.

The Kodiak flew up into one of the Jerusalem's hangars, right after a bigger dropship, based on lines similar to the Covenant ship above, flew in. If Shepard's memory served, then it contained Shipmaster 'Kiram.

The Kodiak dropped and sat against the artificial gravity. The hangar closed and pressurized. Shepard stepped out to see Captain Hood, flanked by six soldiers in black armor on either side. They all had their guns up and pointed at them.

"Stand down," Hood said to his troopers. They lowered their guns but kept them ready.

"I'm Commander Shepard, of the SSV Normandy," Shepard said. Pallas and Grunt looked intimidating as hell at his flanks.

"I'm not here to cause any trouble," Shepard said.

"Really? Then what are you here for?" Hood said with his arms clasped behind his back.

"It might be a bit above your pay grade, Captain," Shepard said.

"I doubt that very much, _Commander_," Hood emphasized Shepard's lower rank.

"I'm not in your chain of command, Hood. I'm with the Systems Alliance," Shepard shook his head.

"You're human, which means you're either UNSC or Insurrectionist," Hood said as he looked to Grunt and Pallas. "I don't know what these things are, but if they make a wrong move, my men _will_ shoot to kill,"

Shipmaster 'Kiram and two other elites dropped from the phantom. They walked over peacefully.

"Good to see you again, Hood," He said. They shook hands.

"You too, Kas. How're the kids?"

"Thel is doing fine. And Jiran will make a great warrior one day," Kas said, referring to his nephews. Sangheili males never knew their own children, who were raised by their mothers and uncles.

"Good to hear it. Back to business," Hood turned back to Shepard.

"What am I going to do with you?" He said.

"I need to talk to your higher-ups, seeing as I'm a diplomat from a civilization in a different galaxy," Shepard said.

Hood looked at Shepard's armor.

"Oh, yeah, you're a diplomat,"

"This probe you've been looking at is mine,"

"Then our mission has become more interesting," Kas 'Kiram said. "Our mission was to escort the Jerusalem as it towed the probe to UNSC space. Instead, perhaps we can bring you,"

"It's a good idea," Shepard said, expecting Hood to disagree.

"It is. Either what you're saying is true, which I doubt, or you'll get interrogated by ONI for some real answers. I'm happy either way," Hood said.

"How long would it take to get to your space?" Shepard asked.

"Well, it's a couple hundred light years away. I'd say about six hours, give or take,"

"Normandy can't go nearly that fast. Can we dock with your ship and hitch a ride?" Shepard asked. Some Alliance ships were rigged to carry wounded ships that couldn't move in FTL under their own power. Maybe there was a UNSC equivalent.

"Yeah. Our docking systems are different than yours, but we could fix something up," Hood said.

"Alright. Then I should head back to the Normandy-" Shepard started.

"Not so fast. My orders are to deliver that probe. I suppose delivering you is better, but I'd like some insurance," Hood said.

"Like what?" Shepard asked.

"I want to send some of my ODSTs aboard your ship. Try anything funny, they can raise all kinds of hell," Hood said.

"What're ODSTs?" Shepard wasn't agreeing to anything until he knew if he was accepting soldiers or tanks on the Normandy.

Hood stuck his thumbs out to his left and right. The black-armored soldiers at his sides nodded, and one of them waved jokingly. Shepard figured he could handle them if they got violent.

"Alright. Let's go,"

* * *

Five ODSTs went with in with Shepard. Hood decided to send some of the team that had gone to the probe-there was Sarge, Newton, and three other guys. Newton was still new enough that he hadn't asked their names.

Once they were inside the airlock, Shepard turned to them.

"Alright. Just so you know, we're not enemies. If things go well, we'll be allies. If things don't, then we still don't have to be enemies. You can put those guns down,"

"We'll keep 'em, thanks," One of the bigger ODSTs rumbled.

Shepard shrugged. "Your call, but if you kill or injure anyone, you answer to me. Got it?"

"Got it," Newton said before the big guy could mouth off.

"Good," Shepard smiled. "It'll be a couple hours before we head out. Then it'll be another couple hours before we arrive. So make yourselves at home,"

The ODSTs decided to hang out in the mess. Gardner cooked up some dinner for them when they asked.

"Here you go, fellas. Just don't complain if you don't like it. I get enough of that from the crew, seeing as I don't have all the supplies I'd like," Gardner handed out some trays, and the ODSTs dug in.

"Wow, this is pretty good, Mess Sergeant," Sarge said as he sucked down his chili.

"Yeah," Newton agreed as he ate something that tasted like ramen. "Thought you said you didn't have supplies?"

"I don't" Gardner laughed. "This is standard military fare where I come from. Crew always whines,"

"Then no offense, but you've got pretty messed-up crew," The big ODST said. "Back on the Jerusalem we get battle rations, and that's it,"

"Why's that?" Gardner asked.

"'Cause we're still recovering," Newton said. "After the war, we had no colonies, and Africa, which was basically the breadbasket of Earth, was mostly glassed. Famine killed more people than the Flood. Food supplies are still stretched,"

"Er, what's the Flood?" Gardner was fairly confused.

"Trust me, man, you don't want to know," Sarge said.

Gardner was very confused. Then Shepard walked around the corner.

"How're you guys doing?" He asked.

"Pretty good," Sarge replied. "You got a hell of a cook here,"

"What, Gardner? You must be delusional, or something," Shepard sat down and Gardner went back to work.

"Thanks a lot, boss," Gardner called from the kitchen. Shepard chuckled.

"Thing have been tough for us. The UNSC is barely recovering-so we enjoy a good meal when we eat one," Newton said.

"Yeah," an ODST grunted. "Back home we get more nutrient paste than anything else,"

"Why've things been so bad?"

"Well, the Human-Covenant War just ended a few years back," Sarge said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What's that?" Shepard asked.

"The Human-Covenant War? Really? Well, you know that big Sangheili, whats-his-name-"

"Shipmaster Kas 'Kiram," Newton said.

"Right, right. Well, his race and a bunch of others grouped up and called themselves the Covenant. Then a couple thousand years later, they find one of our outer colonies. They attacked it, killed everyone, and shot down enough plasma to turn the place's surface to glass,"

"Really? Back home some aliens invaded one of our colonies, a couple decades ago. We kicked them off a little later, and then neutral parties stepped in and stopped it from getting ugly," Shepard said. The turians had invaded Shanxi in the First Contact War. Hundreds died, but nothing like the whole colony being destroyed.

"Well, no one stepped in for us. And it got ugly. Over the next thirty-something years, the Covenant looked for human planets, killing everyone on every one they found. And we had hundreds. We tried to give as good as we got, but they had way better tech. If we gave it to 'em on the ground, they'd just fall back into orbit and kill us from there," Sarge's voice got quiet.

"Half a trillion of us bit it, all in all. We almost went extinct. We barely pulled through,"

Shepard was damn impressed. These were fighters. He understood why the captain had been so hostile.

"So the war ended when you beat them?"

"No. I'd like to say that, but no. See, the aliens were killing us for religious reasons. When that religion went through some trouble, the Sangheili got betrayed, the whole thing fell apart. That was the Schism. The Sangheili went to our side, and together, we beat the rest of the Covenant. It's a lot more complicated than that, of course, but that's the short version," Sarge shrugged.

"Why are you guys so chummy with the Sangheili? My people still haven't forgiven the turians for the First Contact War, and it wasn't a thousandth of what you went through,"

"Well, the Sangheili are all our buds. They generally aren't allowed on most worlds, 'cause they get attacked by civilians. And they usually aren't as friendly as 'Kiram. He's a real sympathizer, hates what he did during the war, and he's been friends with the captain since the war ended. He's a good one, 'Kiram,"

"And plus, they saved our asses when the Covenant fell apart," One guy pitched in.

"And they were tricked into killing us in the first place," Newton said.

"Sound like good people," Shepard said.

"Well, we've all got a Sangheili bud. See, they're all warriors, and we've all fought with them at least once. They respect our honor and bravery and other stuff. We're the closest thing to them in terms of military skill, since the Spartans are all dead," Sarge said.

"So, what are Spartans?" Shepard asked.

"Well, they're kind of hard to explain…,"

* * *

The Spartan IIs and IIIs were dead or gone. Officially the program had ended. But ONI Section 3 knew better than that.

The Spartan IV program was in full swing, with a graduating class of fifty Spartans already serving.

Spartan IVs were very similar to their earlier cousins. Like the IIIs, the newest version of augmenting processes were used. Like the IIs, they were given MJOLNIR armor with shields.

But the UNSCs resources were very limited. Spartans IVs, like the cover story of the IIs, were culled from the best and brightest in the UNSC Army, Marines, and Navy. They started as a mix of Recon marines, Army Rangers, and Navy Seals. After the bare minimum of one year of brutal training, they were given a cheaper, stripped-down version of MJOLNIR, the Mark Seven.

Mark Seven armor had shielding and the capacity to store an AI, like earlier versions. They enhanced strength and speed in wearers. The biggest advances allowed for cheaper material and construction costs: the Mark Seven was as good as the Mark Six, but a tenth of the cost. They had VISR and other upgrades.

They were tougher and meaner than hell, and they needed something to cut their teeth on. They didn't know it yet, but Shepard had just that.


	15. Chapter 15

"Well, gentlemen, I see no reason why we shouldn't help you. With the Reaper threats explained and acknowledged by another extragalactic civilization, perhaps we could expect military aid," The turian councilor said to Grayson and Jorge.

"Any aid would be gratefully accepted, of course," The asari councilor said.

"We'll gladly send you home. Please relay our request," the salarian councilor said.

"Yeah, sure. Good to meet you guys," Jorge rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. _These guys are desperate_, he thought. "Wait, did you say another extragalactic civilization?"

"Yes. We've just received reports that one of our agent shave made contact with another the civilization, the UNSC," The salarian councilor said.

Grayson and Jorge exchanged looks.

"Very well. A shuttle is prepped downstairs and to the right. It will take you to Delta Relay, which will take you home," the asari councilor said.

"Thank you," Grayson said. The duo turned and walked away.

"Think the bosses will be pissed at us for letting the HSL get blown up by that Reaper?" Jorge asked.

"I hope not. The Empire would've executed us, but the Republic seems a little less uptight then them," Grayson shrugged.

"Maybe that was just Vader who executed people," Jorge wondered.

"Huh. Maybe. Spent most of my time with the stormtroopers in the 501st. Didn't know any command that wasn't Vader's until I deserted," Grayson said thoughtfully.

"What was it like? I mean, under Vader? Heard he was a tough boss," Jorge joked.

"Yeah. If you were late to the office, he'd stab you with his lightsaber. It was only for the more serious offenses, like filling out your timesheets wrong, when he strangled you with the Force," Grayson chuckled.

"Not bad, man. Maybe you're developing a sense of humor," Jorge said.

"Doubt it," Grayson said as they arrived at the shuttle.

"How's it going?" Grayson flirtatiously asked the female shuttle guard.

"Pretty good," She said warily.

"So when do you get off-" Grayson punched Jorge sharp in his kidney.

"Ow! Dammit, what was that for?" Jorge muttered.

"I apologize for my friend, he's a little…," Grayson looked at Jorge, who shrugged. "Yeah, I'm not sure what he is,"

"It's ok," the guard laughed, "Go on through, big guy," she fluttered her eyelashes. Grayson didn't move.

"Uh…" he said. Jorge laughed and pushed him in.

* * *

_**One Year Earlier**_

"You may have been ODSTs, Rangers, Seals, and other shit, but, once again, you are _recruits_. My name, boys and girls, is Staff Sergeant Jackson, but all my friends call me Staff Sergeant. _Do you understand me_?"

"YES STAFF SERGEANT!" Three hundred soldier, sailors, and marines shouted.

"Good. When I say jump, you say:"

"HOW HIGH!" The company shouted.

"When I say run, you say:"

"HOW FAR!"

"When I say shit, you say:"

"WHAT COLOR!"

Staff Sergeant Jackson chuckled.

"Damn right. Spartans aren't trained and they aren't chosen, they are both. You are supposed to be the best. _Are you the best_?"

"YES STAFF SERGEANT!" they roared.

"Wrong. You were the best. I will make you the best. I'll put you through fire and ice to make you the best. But a lot of you won't make it. _Do you have what it takes to be the best_?"

"YES STAFF SERGEANT!"

"Wrong again. We have one hundred suits of armor being made. Problem is, there are three hundred here. There are one hundred Spartans in this company, and by god, I'm gonna find them. The Spartan IIs trained for eight years. You have three hundred sixty days. The Spartan IIIs trained for seven years. You have three hundred sixty days. Most of you will wash out. Some of you will die trying," Jackson got quiet.

"The war is over, and the UNSC's resources are at the breaking point. People are starving all over earth, the one planet we have left. You wanna earn breakfast, then get running. The first hundred here get to eat. The rest get to run some more. _You got me_?"

"YES STAFF SERGEANT!" The company dissolved into three hundred men and women, sprinting around their eight-mile training course. Jackson joined them, and was soon in the lead. He was hungry after all that yelling.

As his feet pounded the wet dirt around their training camp, Jackson settled into a steady rhythm. He regulated his breathing, timing everything to get maximum speed and endurance. He'd done this run dozens of times before, to get back in fighting shape before the recruits arrived. He also tested out the firing ranges, getting his accuracy to as sharp as any sniper. He needed to be better than the best-give them something to shoot for, seeing as all the original Spartans were dead. He needed to be an ideal, a symbol, to his men. He did it to motivate them, but that wasn't the only reason: He did it because he'd lied-there were one hundred and one suits being painstakingly crafted.

Jackson had enlisted because of the Spartans: heros fighting and beating back the Covenant. ONI Section Two had built them into gods in the public consciousness. Jackson believed the lie ONI circulated: that Spartans were culled from the best and brightest in the UNSC military. So he'd enlisted, determined to be the best, and join their ranks. Of course, it didn't work out that way. The Spartans were gone, ghosts sacrificed to preserve humanity.

Jackson was a career ODST by the time he knew this. He was used to being the best. His adolescent dream was gone. Then he was approached by ONI to serve as a Drill Sergeant for the Spartan IVs. Having read his file, they offered him the one thing they knew he wouldn't and couldn't refuse: to lead the next generation of Spartans as their commander, as one of them.

* * *

_**Present Day**_

Like the Spartan IIIs, the Spartan IVs were trained and built by ONI Section Three, Beta-5. They were given marine ranks, not navy ranks like the II-series.

Master Sergeant Jackson was living the dream, though not as he expected. He was given MJOLNIR Mark Seven armor, like the men and women under his command. It was like cut-down Mark Six armor-advanced materials made it just as good and much more economical.

Jackson knew his men preferred the DMR, but the assault rifle fit his style better. UNSC tech had advanced to the point that each bullet contained an advanced, mass-produced projectile that magnetically held a small plasma load. As the bullet hit, it splintered-releasing the plasma, which did horrific damage while superheating the hardened shards as they impacted. Each shot did roughly three times the damage to shielding, and twice the damage to armor. It was expensive to produce these rounds, so far, so only Spartans had access.

Each Spartan was able to pick out their favorite custom add-ons as well. Running on their own dedicated power supply, add-ons enabled each Spartan to specialize their armor before each mission. Active-camo, overshields, strength, speed, and dozens of others were available, giving Spartans even greater advantages in combat. Jackson liked a combination strength boost/overshield add-on.

There were invisible Spartans, invincible Spartans, and dozens of others in between. They would be needed for the coming fight.

* * *

While the newest Spartans beat down Insurrectionists and took down rogue former Covenant elements, one of the oldest sat down at a Coruscant bar, ordering a usual with a raised finger. It was difficult to gauge his age-the augmentations had enhanced his cellular regeneration, slowing the aging process. Accumulated years in cryosleep didn't help. He looked to be in his late thirties, but he was at least twenty years past that.

He'd left his armor and weapons in his apartment. He hadn't needed them for years.

The Master Chief, John-117, was trapped, and of course, free to do whatever he wished. He was a guest of the New Republic, given diplomatic immunity. He'd been there ever since Luke Skywalker had gotten him from the wreckage of the frigate.

Everything was gone. The UNSC was thousands of light-years away, if it was there at all, after all this time. Four hours after he'd left the frigate, he looked through a telescope.

And saw his galaxy. The Milky Way. As far away as it could ever be.

He held considerable respect with the community. He ran four miles every morning, got a job at a local shop. He was considered by most to be a foreign dignitary, in some ways. He maintained his armor, an even upgraded some worn out components with the advanced tech readily available here. He tried to be a good guest.

When he learned of the construction of the Hyperspace Launchers, he petitioned for a launch. To go home. He was respected. But his request was put behind Grayson and Jorge, two trusted RN soldiers, for a scout run to a different galaxy.

As he sipped his drink, he considered.

The Chief knew where to go. His experiences on the Halos, the Ark, gave him the knowledge necessary. He still had the nav charts… even though… even…

Cortana wasn't dead. The Chief had come to value her too much, even if she was now a liability. She was rampant. She was locked down, contained in a storage cube in John's apartment-basically in a digital padded room and straightjacket. If he ever went home, he'd take her with him. Maybe the technology had advanced enough for him to cure her.

But he'd have to wait. Grayson and Jorge would go first, and then him. It was a promise made by the powers-that-be, here on Coruscant. Two more days.

Two more days.

The washed-up Spartan sipped his drink and waited.


	16. Chapter 16

"We don't know how many Reapers there are. Our estimates range from three hundred to two thousand," Shepard said to the senior officers of UNSC High Command. It was composed of three members: Fleet Admiral Hood, the oldest and highest ranking member, General Yevgenny, Commandant of both the Army and Marine Core, and Dr. Emily Turing, civilian liaison.

The meeting was not going well. Shepard had presented his case honestly and eloquently; which in retrospect might not have been a good thing, considering the message.

"Commander, how long until you believe they will engage in full-scale war?" Dr. Turing asked.

"Soon, doctor. They've taken the Citadel, which until recently housed our government. Spy drones confirmed that the Reaper fleet came through the Citadel Mass Relay-three hundred ships had arrived before the drone stopped transmitting, assumed destroyed," Shepard said respectfully.

Lord Hood spoke up.

"In the Covenant War, the fighting was primarily ship-to-ship. But there were still massive ground engagements. What do the Reapers have in the way of infantry?"

"The Citadel was taken when a Reaper came to unlock the relay, but it wasn't destroyed. The Reaper apparently disgorged thousands of small creatures," Shepard said, tapping his omni-tool. A blurry image of a pale jellyfish-looking thing appeared. The members of High Command froze with wide eyes. Shepard continued.

"When one of these things attacked a person, the person… changed. They turned on their friends,"

"We've faced these things before, Shepard," Hood said quietly. "They're called the Flood. They've exterminated civilizations. They almost got us," General Yevgenny spoke up.

"You say you got the technology for extragalactic travel from the relays, the Reapers?"

"Yes," Shepard said.

"Then they also have the capacity for such travel?"

"Yes," Shepard said.

"I propose that we provide the Council and Alliance with the military aid they have requested," Yevgenny said. "We cannot allow the Flood to reach us where we live ever again,"

"They may not have noticed us. What if our military aid only draws them to us?" Dr. Turing wondered aloud.

"The Sangheili already know about this. If not, then they will soon. You know they won't allow the Flood to exist when we can attack. The Sangheili will lead them to us-the only thing we can do is do all we can to help, and hope we succeed," Hood said icily. "We cannot allow the Flood to conquer another civilization while we just watch. I second General Yevgenny's proposal,"

"We can hide this from the Sangheili. We can't doom ourselves to a war we cannot win!" Turing almost shouted at Hood. She was terrified.

"We will not hide information from our new allies, and even if we would, we can't. The remnants of the Covenant destroyed dozens of these probes, as the Commander said. How long until the Sangheili tap into one and learn what we've learned?"

"No! We're not strong enough! We don't have the ships or the soldiers!" Turing yelled.

"We've got a new generation of Spartans. And our ships are more technologically advanced than they've ever been," Yevgenny disagreed.

"You're overruled, doctor. The UNSC will not stand idly by when billions of lives hang in the balance," Hood stood up and looked at Shepard.

"We're in, Commander Shepard. I'll muster the fleet,"

"What _fleet_?" Turing screamed. "We have _nineteen ships_! We're struggling to survive! People are still starving!"

Yevgenny slapped her. "Pull yourself together,"

"Calm down, doctor. This meeting is adjourned," Hood walked out, looking very tired.

LBLBLB

Shepard's expression was neutral as he looked out at the Normandy's observation deck. A fleet of eleven of the UNSC's best fighting ships were being loaded up and readied for war. Hundreds of smaller troop transports were flying up from earth, carrying thousands of marines and their gear. Having fought the Flood before, massive amounts of HAZMAT material were loaded up. Extra shotguns and new semi-plasma melee weapons, which were UNSC mod/cops of energy swords, were carried up.

Shepard knew these ships were going to go a long way toward winning the war with the Reapers. They could save it all.

But Shepard also knew that Turing had made a valid point. If the war was lost, if the Systems Alliance and the Council died, then that would be terrible enough. But what if the help the UNSC was giving would mean the end of this civilization as well? What if the Reapers followed them home?

They were gambling everything.

Shepard raised an eyebrow as a seven-foot tall armored behemoth walked up to him and saluted. He was followed by an even bigger soldier-an alien, one of the Sangheili, in black armor.

"At ease," Shepard said. The armored man put his hand down and clasped them behind his back.

"Sir, my name is Master Sergeant Jackson. I command Spartan Alpha Company, and in accordance with Fleet Admiral Hood's orders, I have been placed under your command,"

"I'm honored, Spartan. Heard a lot about you guys," Shepard smiled.

"Yes, sir. We're based on the Jerusalem, seeing as the Normandy doesn't have the room for all of us. I've got a fireteam ready to come aboard, if you want," Jackson said.

"I'd appreciate it, sergeant. Anything else?" Shepard said.

"I'd also like to retrieve the ODST squad that came aboard. Per Captain Hood's orders, any of them can stay if they choose, but I'm here to get the rest, sir,"

"Very well. Dismissed," Shepard turned to the alien.

"Hello. I'm Commander Shepard,"

"I know. My name is Onra 'Arut. I was there when you met my Shipmaster. He has given me permission to join your ship's warriors,"

"Very well. It is good to meet you, Onra. I apologize if this offends you, but you seem a little slimmer than other Sangheili,"

The Sangheili chuckled. "I understand that you mean no offense. But please do not bring it up again. Small Sangheili are on the lower castes-they are seen as inferior warriors. My size separates me from others of my kind. I left Glorious Return because it was… diminishing, being surrounded by those that consider themselves my betters. Kas 'Kiram is a good Shipmaster, but he is old-fashioned. He was glad to see me go,"

"Well, you're welcome here, Onra. Make yourself at home," Shepard said.

"Thank you, Commander," The alien bowed its head and left. Shepard headed for the elevator and started it toward the CIC. When the doors opened, Shepard faced three Spartans in full armor. Two of them looked slimmer, more feminine, and the one on the right was a head taller and far more massive.

"Hello, Commander. I'm Sandy-425. This is Jackie-417 and Sam-434. We're Blue Team, and we've been assigned to your command," The Spartans saluted.

"Good to have you, Spartans. Get settled in wherever you want," Shepard said. "We'll be heading out soon,"

"Yes, sir," Sandy said.

LBLBLB

Shepard didn't really like having the Normandy linked up to the Jerusalem. It was just a little embarrassing, having to hitch a ride everywhere. He made a mental note to request a Shaw-Fujikawa drive like the UNSC used.

As eleven ships headed out from the space dock, each of them several times bigger than the Normandy, Shepard wondered just how ready for war the Council was. Each ship the UNSC contributed was purpose-built for space warfare, built from the skeleton out for incredible stresses. In contrast, ships built by the Council and the Alliance were built for ground support, transport, and others, not the least of which was vanity. The Normandy was a hell of a lot prettier than the Jerusalem, for no logical reason.

Two cruisers, a carrier, four destroyers, and four frigates' engines flared as they accelerated out of earth's gravity well. Once they got far enough, eleven blue portals opened up, and the fleet jumped to slipspace. In a couple hours, they arrived at Alpha Relay. After the Normandy liaisoned with the relay's system, it shot them across trillions of miles of dark space into a different galaxy in thirty seconds.

They arrived to find a much larger fleet of Alliance and Council vessels.

"This is Commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy, and the cavalry has arrived!" Shepard broadcast over the com. A roar of approval blasted from the bridge of every ship-they were cheering. Shepard allowed himself a smile.

When the roar died away, a familiar voice came over the com:

"Commander Shepard, damn good work," the turian councilor said, "Report to the Destiny Ascension for debriefing,"

"Roger that. Normandy out," Shepard said as he turned the radio off. "Joker, get us there,"

"Already there, almost," Joker said. "Get that asari councilor's phone number!" Joker called out as Shepard stepped in the airlock.

The air cycled through and Shepard walked out. He headed for the large room that the Council now used in lieu of a Presidium tower.

The three councilors looked haggard, except for their broad grins.

"Excellent work, Commander," The salarian said.

"Thank you. But that isn't all-I expect a different faction to send another fleet soon. Maybe even a bigger one," Shepard chuckled.

"That is incredible, Shepard!" the asari laughed. "We'll have a real shot now,"

"How'd you do it, Shepard?" the turian asked.

Shepard's grin faded.

"Apparently the Reaper's new infantry is called the Flood-and they're just as dangerous. When I mentioned them, the UNSC agreed to fight pretty quickly. It was just as much for self-preservation as altruism,"

"The Flood…," The salarian said. "It's an appropriate name, all things considered. We've just lost contact with the turian colony Jerandur. Before communications cut out, soldiers on the ground described massive waves of the enemy. Needless to say, orbital defenses had been wiped out almost immediately, but we think there are two Reapers there,"

"We want you to join a joint effort to retake Jerandur. We'll send twenty ships-we need to know exactly how outmatched we are on a one-to-one space battle basis,"

"You got it," Shepard said.


	17. Chapter 17

Shepard looked to the fourteen members of his squad. They were fully geared up and ready for action. The CIC's holographic galaxy map was surrounded by the soldiers, and showed the turian colony Jerandur, with the two Reapers in geosynchronous orbit.

"This operation is space-based. The Normandy will play an observational role-her stealth will let us observe and record everything from a close distance, placing mines, relay sats, anything to give our forces a tactical advantage. But she'll stay out of the fight. It's not something I like to admit, but the Normandy isn't up to this level of fleet action. Alpha Wing consists of eight UNSC warships, including the Jerusalem. They'll attack the Reapers broadside, and once their engaged, Beta Wing, the twelve faster, less armored Council and Alliance ships will hit them from behind,"

"With any luck, the Reapers will be out of the fight quickly. But the Normandy won't be running idle. Our mission is planetside. We'll search for civilians and do all we can to get them out. Despite assertions that the Flood don't leave survivors-" He nodded to Onra and the UNSC soldiers, including Private Newton. "-we'll take a close look. If nothing else, we'll get a better feel for what we're up against, drop a nuke, for asset denial. This is the closest thing to a dry run we'll ever get-we need to find out just how tough they are one and one, and this is the only way to find out. Stay close and fast. I don't want any casualties,"

Eight bulky warships dropped out of slipspace and immediately started hammering the Reapers with MAC rounds. The shields on the Reapers held, and they fired on the lead UNSC ship, a cruiser. The first shot dissipated the shields, and amazingly, the second shot went straight through-but the cruiser kept going, firing its missiles. The rest of the fleet concentrated their fire on the lead Reaper, and on the seventh MAC, the shields dropped. Hundreds of missiles slammed into it, and the Reaper lost power, drifting into Jerandur's gravity well. It would burn up in the atmosphere.

There were too many to fit in the Kodiak, so Onra, Newton, and the Spartans took their pelican. The rest went with Shepard. Both dropships flew out of the Normandy, straight down at the planet. But as they left the Normandy, their stealth protection was gone. Dozens of single ships rocketed from the surviving Reaper. They looked spherical, with hexagonal solar panels on either side.

"Shepard to Alpha Wing-seems like we'll need some fighter escort," Shepard broadcast over the comm. In response, Jerusalem broke from the fleet and raced to the dropships, opening its hangar door and dropping dozens of Longswords.

Shepard opened a channel to Blue Team.

"Those things any good?"

"They got us through the Human-Covenant War, and that was before we had shielding," Newton said.

As the groups of fighters got closer, Shepard saw how small the enemies were. The fighters didn't even look big enough to hold a person in them. On the other hand, the UNSC Longswords were like small starships, far bigger than the Kodiak or pelican.

With the Jerusalem's added momentum, the Longswords got to the dropships first, but didn't stay put. They accelerated straight at the oncoming fighters-missiles and cannons and strange green blasts mingling. As the Kodiak angled away toward the planet, Shepard's view cut away.

"Tali, show me the aft camera," Tali, the pilot, pressed a button. On Shepard's Heads Up Display, twenty five Longswords were heading to the dropships, leaving behind a cloud of the destroyed fighters.

"Casualties?" Shepard asked.

"None," Tali said. "Keelah, we need some of those,"

The Longswords' greater size and shielding had overpowered the smaller craft. They flew alongside the pelican and Kodiak, ready to protect them as long as they could. Overhead, the second Reaper was torn to pieces by MAC rounds.

"So far, so good," Sandy commented optimistically over the comm.

"Let's see just how tough the Flood is," Shepard said back.

The leading edges of the dropships glowed red as atmospheric friction started heating the hulls. The Longswords peeled off-they could handle atmosphere, but not like the dropships. They'd do more in space. It would take a few minutes to land-Shepard thought this was as good a time as any for briefing.

"We're landing in the capital city, Ipono. What intel we have says the Flood attacked the outskirts first, then moved in to Ipono. If there are survivors, they'll be there,"

"The dropships have extra fuel, so they'll stand by for air support, or evac if things are too hot. Stick together-but don't be afraid to get your feet wet,"

The dropships got closer to the city, moved through some cloud cover-

Ipono was gone. The main structures of the city were still there, but covered with pale Flood flesh. Millions of infection forms crawled over the remnants, along with tens of thousands of combat and carrier forms.

"My god," Miranda whispered.

"This wasn't an invasion. This was recruitment," Onro murmured, along with what sounded like a Sangheili prayer.

"Orders, sir?" Sandy asked.

"You pegged it. There aren't any survivors. But we can still avenge the victims. Land on that building, there-we'll hold the roof until the nuke is armed, then bug out,"

It was a squat, three story building, with a roof more than big enough to hold the pelican and Kodiak. Shepard stepped out, trying to ignore the sound his boots made against the Flood skin. Two Spartans carried out the nuke-big, ugly, and enough firepower to turn this city into a parking lot.

The dropships took off, hovering fifty feet above the building. They'd wait for orders. Sam started to arm the bomb.

"Give me a rough circle. Flood'll come from all sides," Shepard said. The dozen odd squad members encircled the bomb, facing out.

"Jesus-Flood are scaling the walls," The pelican pilot said.

"Strafe them, but with your guns only. Missiles will weaken the building, and the last goddamn thing we need is for it to collapse," Shepard ordered.

"Roger that," The pelican's cannon ripped through combat forms, shaking the roof.

Hundreds of Flood made it to the roof.

"Grenades!" Shepard yelled. Every member of the squad carried UNSC frag grenades-and all of them threw one. They pulled the pin, threw the grenade-pressed the button on the pin. The grenades exploded in mid-air, throwing off shrapnel, tearing through Flood are only lightly scarring the roof.

"Hit them!"

Before his death, Shepard had mistakenly assumed his squad was as thoroughly trained as he was-and knew how to shoot assault rifles. He was wrong then, but the squad had had to carry them anyways. This time around he trained them himself, and they could shoot nearly as well as himself. The Spartans could shoot even better. Flood were torn apart and scattered by the coordinated fire.

The Spartans had to reload every few seconds, and even the other squad members had to eject thermal clips. Every time the fire slackened, the Flood advanced.

"Give me ten more seconds!" Sam shouted.

The Flood had been carrying melee weapons-wrenches, concrete slabs, even limbs of their fallen, but now some of them had pistols, SMGs… and one hefted an ML-77 rocket launcher.

"Scatter!" Shepard shouted. The squad jumped away as a rocket streaked towards Shepard's feet. The explosion gouged a massive hole in the roof, most of it right below the nuke. Sam grabbed it, but it was damned heavy. His boots slid on the Flood flesh and both the nuke and the Spartan fell in.

"Shit!" He yelled, drowning out Flood moaning.

"Sandy, Jackie, get down there! Arm it, grab Sam, and evac!" Shepard switched to his shotgun and kept firing. The two Spartans jumped in the hole-Sam was fighting off three turian combat forms with his empty assault rifle, swinging it like a club. Jackie and Sandy shot them off.

"Finish up the nuke!" Sandy yelled. "We'll cover you!"

Sam typed furious on the bomb-slid in the arming card.

"Let's go!" Sam ran under the hole, and jumped with all his strength. The others followed suit.

"Move!" Shepard yelled. With their guns, knives, and elbows, the squad carved a path to the dropships, hovering just over the edge. They climbed in, and rocketed off.

"Did you arm the nuke?" Shepard asked.

"Yes, sir," Sam pulled out the detonator and handed it to Shepard. "You do the honors,"

Shepard grinned. "Tali, we far enough out?"

"Yes, Shepard,"

Shepard pushed the button.

"Alright. Not bad for a dry run," Jackie said, and everyone laughed.


	18. Chapter 18

"Commander Shepard. I would like to speak with you," Pallas's hulking form filled up the doorway to Shepard's quarters.

"Alright, Pallas, come in," Shepard had just gotten back into his regular clothes and sanitized his armor. It had been covered with Flood viscera. He was exhausted. He let the giant geth in.

"What do you want to talk about?" Shepard fell on his bed.

"The previous mission. Shepard, I was not included with the rest of the squad-four newer members went, but I did not. Why?" Pallas's optic was unwavering.

"I wanted to test the combat effectiveness of the new members, and they all expressed desire to go, except for a few key members that I requested,"

Pallas's head panels flared.

"That is highly illogical and unorthodox. I have extensive records of military protocol and history-it supplements my tactical and strategic skill-but never has there been a disciplines military force that requires volunteers for combat action," Shepard raised an eyebrow.

"Are you questioning my ability to lead?" He asked.

"Yes. I do not comprehend. Your battle record is very nearly unparalleled-and yet, there are incongruities and inconsistencies. You do not seem to be an effective leader, but the results tell otherwise," Pallas said neutrally.

"That's because I don't need to order people around. They follow me because I don't order them around-I appeal to their better selves, let them know exactly what's at stake. They're here because they want to be," Shepard said.

"They knowingly risk deletion," Pallas lifted a panel that was up and to the side.

"Yes, I guess. They do what's best for the rest of the galaxy-if they are 'deleted' saving millions of others, then isn't that a good thing?" Shepard asked through a yawn.

"No. It is illogical to presume that others are as valuable as yourself," Pallas said.

"You're young, Pallas. Once you work with the others, you might realize that people are worth the effort," Shepard grinned.

"I rescued several dozen humans from slavers. I am empathetic, to a point, but I was not in any danger. The slavers I deleted were sloppy and unskilled," Pallas kept standing. Shepard sighed.

"What did you initially come here for?"

"To inquire as to why I was not included in the last mission," Pallas said instantly.

"You want to be included in missions," Shepard raised an eyebrow.

"Yes,"

"Even though you'd be risk deletion?" Shepard asked.

"I did not say I was entirely logical, Commander. A part of me, several hundred programs, crave the kinesthetic feel of applying theoretical combat techniques and motions to actual practice. Due to such extensive combat knowledge, I feel I will be in little actual danger,"

"Very well. When a new mission comes up, you'll come along,"

"Thank you," Pallas dipped its head and turned to leave.

* * *

"What… the _fuck_… are these _things_?" Jorge yelled as he drove a vibro-blade into the throbbing chest section of a mutated Wookie, who had been a former member of his squad. It was massive, patches of hair falling out to reveal greenish-yellow skin. Jorge had learned quickly that the chests of these things, the parts with the tentacles sticking out, were their weakness. He'd figured it out when half his squad had been swarmed by tiny podlike things with those tentacles-they'd knocked them out, then crawled inside the body cavity to take over. The first of these things that he'd fought had been his own men.

"Keep firing!"Grayson shouted to some ragged troopers as he force-crushed a dozen of the pods that were bouncing to their position. Aboard their deserter Imperial Star Destroyer Baptized By Blood, Jorge and Grayson had been fighting off these boarders for half the day. The ship and crew had deserted for the New Republic-apparently with an Imperial present. They'd had it for less than an hour before shit hit the fan in Biblical proportions.

The things had appeared right after the Baptized By Blood had joined the balance of the Coruscant Defense Fleet. Jorge and Grayson didn't know it yet, but security footage would reveal that the pods had been released from specially designed cages by former Imperial personnel-personnel who moved sluggishly and clumsily, like they'd been hypnotized. Indoctrinated.

"We just got this ship! No take backs!" Jorge activated his lightsaber and sliced three of the mutants in half. Grayson used the force to stagger a rushing group, giving the survivors a precious few seconds to shred them with blaster fire. In a vicious combination of blasters and lightsaber swings, the group was killed. Jorge drew in a deep breath. Then he eyed his motion tracker.

"_Holy shit_! Fall back! To the escape pods!" Grayson gave him a look for exactly one second, before he saw his own motion tracker.

"Move it, troopers! To the pods!" He roared. The half-dozen survivors turned and bolted. Seconds later, hundreds of Infection Forms swarmed around the corner, flanked by dozens of Combat Forms. It was a race.

Grayson and Jorge were at the back-real leaders were the first to enter and the last to leave. Jorge looked over his shoulder and saw a pale, sickly tidal wave gaining on them.

"_Goddammit, run faster_!" He dropped a thermal detonator and kept running. As they went around the corner, a blast of heat and light followed them, taking down dozens of Infection Forms.

They sprinted as fast as they could-but the horde was too fast. The pods were less than twenty feet away-a pod jumped on Jorge's neck-and Grayson crushed it with the Force. Two jumped on Grayson-with a sweep of his lightsaber, Jorge cut them down. An inch down and he would have taken a chunk of Grayson's shoulder. Grayson turned, his face twisted by anger and fear.

Everything in him was repelled by these things-these things that had turned their friends against them, that called to him to join them. He could feel them with the Force-they were tainted with hunger so great it clawed at his mind. Grayson didn't try to gather himself, didn't concentrate. Instead he grabbed at his fear and anger and willed them out, willed them at his new enemies.

The Force push was so powerful that the metal walls of the hallway bent and groaned with the strain-the Flood that were chasing them were crushed, shredded, and thrown back. But dozens more took their place. Grayson had bought them a few seconds.

The group rushed to the pods.

* * *

Ares was patience. He was persistence. And he was vengeance. Reapers had been killed. Two of them, building an army around a small organic colony. The fleeting beings that killed them had no idea what they'd done.

Deicide. They had killed gods. Quite an accomplishment, but the greatest of crimes nevertheless. Two of the eternal gods that had thrived for tens of millions of years before the organics' ancestors had evolved the simple opposable appendages to build their simple stone tools.

Unthinkable. Impossible. In the complete history of the Reapers before this cycle, only a handful had been killed. Over a vast number of cycles. And yet, three more had met the void. In one cycle.

_Shepard_. Ares screamed in rage. This was his doing-he would pay.

But things would soon be balanced-for every Reaper that had ended, a dozen planets would be scoured. With the Gravemind's ground forces supplementing the Reapers' strength in space, victory was assured. The single-ship fighters the Reapers' new allies had contributed had presented a problem-they were far too frail. Their other contribution, the wedge-shaped ships, would be useful as cannon fodder. But the fighters must be replaced.

All of this went through Ares' mind as he watched a dozen Reapers descend on a large human colony-an estimated three million new Combat Forms for the Flood. He knew that in all three galaxies, Reapers were spreading the infection. The war was on-a blitzkrieg of unstoppable infantry and nearly invincible Reapers were invading everywhere. The good way to neutralize the new enemy alliance would be to target the platforms that connected the galaxies, but they were kept on the move, hidden from the Reapers in the infinite void of space.

_Soon_, Ares thought. _Soon, and you will be mine, Shepard_.

* * *

The small ship decelerated back to subspace. Its passenger let loose a breath he didn't know he'd been holding-there were two small ships. Terribly familiar in design and appearance. The passenger smiled inside his helmet.

"You ok?" Luke Skywalker asked with a smile. "I'm sensing a lot of turmoil,"

"I'm home," The Master Chief said. "I'm finally home,"


	19. Chapter 19

AN: Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I updated this story. I wish I could say that I'll go back to updating this one at my old pace, but I've moved on. I've got some new projects in the works, so I guess you can look forward to that. But don't worry, all my massive hordes of screaming imaginary fans. I'll keep this one going, albeit slowly. This story is my little brother's favorite; he keeps bugging me for new chapters. As long as he stays an annoying fourteen year old, I'll keep updating this story. ;) Enjoy.

Luke smiled. "Been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Too long," The Master Chief murmured. "I wonder how different things will have become,"

"We'll get you back to UNSC space soon, my friend. Can you tell us where we are, now?" Skywalker nodded to a bridge officer, who pulled up a huge holographic map of the galaxy, with a small yellow point indicating their current position. The Chief thought a moment.

"We're in Covenant space. Separatist or Loyalist, I can't tell," _I don't even know if those factions _exist_ anymore_.

"There's not much we can do without precise mapping-unlike with your slipspace, hyperdrives don't allow us to pass through planets or stars. Go too far, and we'd hit something. Do you think we should ask for some?" Luke wondered.

"We can't know if they're hostile or not. We should go to battle stations and be ready to make a quick jump out-system, just in case,"

The _Saber_ wasn't a stealthy ship, or a big one. If push came to shove, the only way to survive would be to run.

"You heard the man," Luke said to the three officers around them, who began to prepare.

"Show me the system," John said. With a press of a button, the galaxy map turned to a smaller map of the solar system. An average star… a thick asteroid belt. There were four planets, two of them gas giants-obviously uninhabitable. Only one of the remaining planets could conceivably be in the habitable zone.

"Give me a better look at this planet," The magnification turned as high as Saber's instruments could go-the Master Chief could see two small moons, several tiny dots that could be ships or small space stations. And one large dot. An extremely thin yellow line came from the large dot, and one of the smaller dots brightened, then vanished.

"They're under attack," Luke frowned.

"We're at least twenty light-minutes out-this battle is underway, maybe over," John had a bad feeling, looking at the holographic image. "We need a closer look,"

"I agree. Take us closer… but far enough to not get involved, if we so wished,"

"Aye, sir," One of the crew said, and worked the controls. Stars blurred for a fraction of a second, and John saw the screen change. The planet was in much better detail-rich browns and greens, mostly plains and mountains... A small patch was lighter green that the rest. He could see dozens of hook-shaped, scrappy looking ships, in hard burns around orbit, fleeing from… something.

It was massive, red-brown. Claws and a shell reminiscent of some kind of shellfish. This had to be what was attacking the planet.

"Transmission," Someone said.

"Put it on-screen," John crossed his arms.

A hauntingly familiar bird-like face came on. It was a Jackal. It squawked, and a translation came over a second later.

"Humans! This is the Urikun Defense Fleet, loyal to the Sangheili, friends to the UNSC. We need help-under attack!"

"I'm not sure what we can-" Luke began.

"Help is on the way," The Master Chief said confidently. He turned to Luke. "I need a weapon,"

He looked hard at the Chief. "If you say so. We do need their help, after all,"

"Sir! Want my rifle?" A security officer asked.

"Yes, I do," John took his gun. It seemed relatively simple to operate-sights, a trigger, and a magazine. "Ammo?"

"Oh! Sorry. Here," He handed his a half-dozen clips. John hadn't used a standard assault rifle in years. "Grenades?"

"Here," The officer handed over a small bag of light gray devices that looked sort of like Covenant plasma grenades.

The Chief didn't like Jackals. They were ugly as hell-but then again, so were most alien species. But more than that, they seemed less like respectable opponents… more like… well, Jackals. Pirates. Scavengers. At least Elites had a version of honor.

But things were clear. These Jackals were allies-he was obligated to help them. But more than that, he either needed extremely detailed navigational data, or a slipspace-capable ship, to get to High Command and report. He liked Luke, but his hesitation to get in a fight could be costly.

"Zoom out," The Chief said. The system map reappeared. "Jump here," He pointed to one of the closer gas giants.

"Sir?"

"Do it. And then initiate a slingshot around it. I want to get going as fast as this boat can get-pointed right at that big ship,"

"How long should the slingshot take?"

"As fast as you can,"

The pilot swerved the Saber around, then initiated a jump. The ship arrived by the gas giant a second later, began the slingshot.

"I hope you have a plan," Luke said. John pulled out the tiny square of memory crystal, handing it to the security officer, nodded. _Something crazy… she would like it_.

"You lose or break that, I will kill you," He said, deadly serious. The officer half-laughed, thinking the Chief was joking, but the gold visor held as steady as the voice, and the officer nodded.

Cortana held a lot of data on Covenant technology, and UNSC reverse-engineering efforts. Enough to build small add-ons, armor abilities, like he'd had in the old days, right before Reach fell. The Pillar of Autumn's weapon locker devoted to Spartan equipment had been destroyed before the events on Halo, so, then, he'd had to do without. But they were incredibly useful. The Chief had seven on hand. With his upgraded armor's fusion reactor, he had enough juice to run two at a time, three even, if he was willing to sacrifice his shield strength and recharge speed. The Mark Six had been strong by itself, but the Chief had spent the last couple years incorporating technology from his guest galaxy, and his suit was better than ever.

"How long till we arrive?" He asked.

"Six minutes,"

"Too long. Redline the reactor. I want us to be moving as fast as possible when we arrive,"

John reached into his bag, and grabbed his jet pack, overshield module, and armor lock module. He was pretty sure the armor lock would be sufficient for the initial impact, but it paid to be careful. At that thought, he imagined Cortana would laugh, considering his plan.

He grabbed a pack. It held enough explosives to blow a hole in pretty much anything. That was his ticket in, once he arrived.

"How long?"

"Two minutes, sir," A bead of sweat ran down the pilot's face. John put a hand on his shoulder.

"We'll be all right. After I bail, angle away from the ship. Use your speed to get to safety,"

"Yes, sir,"

"So what do you expect me to do, while you go save the planet?" Luke asked wryly. He knew the Chief wasn't insane, and that he was a serious soldier. He trusted him, despite not understanding the plan. John chuckled. Then he went down to the airlock.

"I'm sure you'll find some way to entertain yourself,"

When the door closed behind him, he punched a control. Air started to suck out. The Master Chief cracked his neck, prepped the armor lock module.

"Jump in three…," The door opened to space.

"Two…," John braced against the door frame.

"One,"

"Jump!"

It wasn't really a jump. John just let himself float out, careful not to alter his vector too much. He was moving impossibly fast, in the vacuum of space. There was no air resistance. His velocity was incredible. The comm in his helmet spoke.

"Impact with the ship in three, two…,"

John activated armor lock. Normally, on a planet or ship with artificial gravity, the unit would put out a gravitational force than would send him to his knees, bracing with all his strength to keep from collapsing into the floor. In space, the only source of gravity was himself, and it was much, much smaller. The armor lock still amplified it. He curled into a ball easily. Then he flexed-wrapping his hands around his knees. He diverted all power to the lock module, and braced for impact.

He didn't feel a thing. Luckily, he also didn't bounce. Using his jet pack, he flew up close to the hull. It suddenly slid out from under him-the ship was maneuvering. He grabbed a handhold, and it felt like his shoulders were getting ripped out of their sockets. Once the movement slowed, John reached back with one hand and got the damage pack out. He stuck it to the hull, with a two-second fuse, then activated armor lock again. The world turned white, and when it was deactivated, there was a two-meter hole. The Master Chief slid in easily.

It was… odd. Not like any ship the Master Chief had ever seen, in either galaxies. The interior of the ship seemed to be composed to the crab-like legs or claws or whatever they were on the outside of the ship, only smaller. As he had gotten closer, he'd felt a mind-blurring headache. Now it felt like a mosquito buzzing around in his ear, distracting him. What was far more unsettling was the greenish fog in the air, and the smell, that horribly familiar smell, that permeated his suit's air scrubbers.

Flood.

John wished he'd familiarized himself with his weapon of choice before dropping in.

But he had a job to do-Flood or no, this ship wasn't going to stay in one piece for long.

He braced himself against the ragged edge of the hole in the hull, and kicked off. The ship was kept in zero-gravity. He floated along, through the fog. When he touched on a wall, he kicked off again. He was looking for something important. Something complicated-easy to break.

There was a slithering sound… the Master Chief felt something primal in him lurch. He wanted to find the source of that sound and kill it. He landed and jumped off again.

He rounded a corner and entered a huge cavernous room, and saw something. It looked like part of the wall, made of the same weird shapes. It was oval, and his armor detected radiation emanating from it. More to the point was the thousands of Infection Forms, coating the walls. They formed living, nightmarish wallpaper.

The horde jumped at him, and he opened fire. Red blasts spat from the gun-painfully inaccurate. But each shot took down dozens of the bunched-up Flood forms. John jumped backwards to buy himself time-the tidal wave would envelope him, otherwise. He jumped around the corner and primed a thermal detonator. They had been scattered around the room, before, but as the horde rounded the corner, into the narrower hallway, they were much closer together. The Chief threw the detonator. The shock wave popped hundreds of them. The rest of them wavered and exploded from a long series of blaster fire, punctuated by retreats and thermal detonators. Then he jogged back to the chamber. The radiation levels coming from the thing were impressive.

"That looks important," John pulled out his remaining detonators. He didn't know how to set them all to simultaneous explode, or even if they had that feature. So he punched the protruding box as hard as he could. It didn't shatter, like he'd expected. Instead, there was only a small fissure. He punched again. His hand began to ache, so the Master Chief alternated hands. A few moments later, there was a softball-sized hole. He dropped most of the detonators into it. Then he primed the last one, before dropping that one in as well. Then he ran.

The box contained the explosive force, but the radiation surge made the Chief's shields flare. He heard a groan throughout the ship, and the deck shuddered under his feet, bringing a small smile to his face. He raced out back, toward the hole he'd made. With this ship out of the fight, he'd be able to get a slipspace drive and get back into UNSC space. One thing was for sure-it'd be an unexpected homecoming.


End file.
